Earning miles with round the world
 

Apologies if this question has already been asked before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.

A friend of mine is going on a One World round the world trip (LHR-HKG-SIN-DPS-DAR-PER-MEL-AKL-SCL-EZE-GGU-LHR) in Economy and asked me for advise on which mileage program to join. His primary objective would be to make as many bonus miles as possible, he is not interested in obtaining status (though it would certainly be a nice additional benefit).

I did a bit of research and think American Airlines might be a good program for this purpose - is this true, or did I miss out on something?

The problem with AA is that a lot of the flights he will presumably be taking either earn no miles or reduced miles, depending on the carrier. Here's the basic breakdown based on the carriers he could be flying. I am assuming by DAR you meant Darwin (DRW), and by GGU you meant Sao Paolo (GRU).

CX = no miles
BA = 25% miles
QF = 70% miles
LA = 100% miles

Basically, assuming he has no status anywhere, if he takes BA from London to Hong Kong, he will earn about 14,200 miles. If he takes CX from London to Hong Kong, he will earn about 12,700.

I can't answer your question other than that and to say that if you do a search, this has been discussed at length relatively recently and those discussions might be useful. I just realized you said you tried doing a search. I'll see if I can find the thread I am thinking of.

If the fare basis is L (which it is for the OWE product) then Darren's point about the poor mileage earning is true. None of the plans are very good for L earning, maybe CX (Asiamiles) is the best. But it is bad enough that it really doesn't matter much.

Some other RTW products book into M, which earns much more miles. Your friend should check his fare code, maybe he got lucky. For M the best choice is AA, with a Platinum challenge which then earns 100% bonus after completing the challenge.

Thanks for your help so far, Darren and Number_6!

I checked with my friend again, the detailed itinerary is this:
LHR-HKG (BA)
HKG-BKK (CX)
BKK-SIN (QF)
SIN-DPS (QF)
DPS-DRW (QF)
DRW-PER (QF)
PER-MEL (QF)
MEL-AKL (QF)
AKL-SCL (QF)
SCL-EZE (BA)
EZE-GRU (BA)
GRU-GIG (BA)
GIG-LHR (BA)
All flights seem to have been booked into K class.

So I take it LA would be the best program for this itinerary?

Here's an attempt at a summmary of "L" class credit awarded by OW carriers on other members' flights. No guarantee of accuracy now or later; corrections welcome.

Booking Class L - Redeemable miles/km per mile/km flown
* No AA credit on BA US-LON, no BA credit on AA US-LON and v.v.
** Most plans exclude AY "Excursion" (Y-only) flt nos.
*Pts - FFP uses distance-based points; No./pct varies by class/distance

Note - Most miles are EQM or Tier/Sector pt earning - varies by FFP. Longevity of miles and award redemption levels vary greatly. No elite status bonus or other FFP-specific incentives included.

Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that his QF flights will earn 100% on AA. The bad news is that the CX will earn nothing and the BA 25%. So on AA, he will earn about 17,500 assuming that the BKK-DPS and DPS-DRW are on QF or CX metal.

I would look at Asiamiles. Lanpass is a mixed bag because although you will earn on the CX flight, you earn only 70% on the QF flights. Same 25% on BA.

Here's LA's chart.
http://www.lan.com/lanpass/acumule_k..._oneworld.html

AA would be the best one to use in terms of the value of the earned miles (remember that 1 mile in BA/QF/AA/IB/AY/LA/CX is worth a different amount in each plan, with up to 300% divergence depending on usage). AA with the Platinum challenge would start earning 100% status bonus as well as lounge access, and good for future flights until Feb 2008. So be sure to sign up for the Plat challenge ahead of time (this is presuming that 10K miles worth of flights are done in a 90 day period).

Interesting. What type of fare would that be?

10K worth of Qualifying Points, you mean.

K earns 1:1 so there was no need to mention that on this thread. It does become important for other fare classes such as L which only earn 0.5 so take 20K miles to qualify.

This appears to be a point-to-point fare, as OWE books into L and Global Explorer books into M. K is much easier for availability than L, fwiw, as well as earning better miles for the most part.

K earns 1:1 on AA, but for some of the flights mentioned in this thread, it does not, so I think the points vs miles distinction is important.

Take care that SIN-DPS is a codeshare flight (or until 30 June an Australian Airlines flight), not mainline QF metal, so the mileage earning may be different.

What sort of RTW is this? Oneworld's are bokked in L class.

If he just wants miles, perhaps think outside the Oneworld box... and join Alaska's MVP programme, and change the first sector from LHR to HKG to CX instead of BA. And I think if he's booked on QF between BKK and SIN, it might actually be on AY as that flight codeshares with QF. Have your friend change it to CX as well. SIN-DPS is indeed operated by AO or soon to be Jetstar Orange...so probably no miles for that.

http://www.alaskaair.com/mileageplan...rs_Airline.asp

You get 100% mileage on QF, CX and LA flights. You'd only be stuck at the 25% miles with BA.

Thank you all for your help, it is very much appreciated. Even though I managed to understand some parts of this for Star Alliance, I am always struggling when someone asks me about OneWorld. Thanks!