I've always thought that for at least upgrade reasons one should always join the program on the airline that they fly the most.

It's funny that merely discussing LAN Comodoro unpublished benefits could jeopardize their existance!

Obviously, everything depends on the flying patterns.

I fly mostly transatlantic J, so my "how many flights do I need to become Emerald?" comparison would be like follows (assuming an average 10k miles per round trip):

BA Ex.Club:
800 points needed (not UK-Ireland based) / 240 points per round trip = 3.33 R.T. (I know for UK/USA it is much harder).

AAdvantage:
100,000 points needed / (10,000 x 1,5) = 6.66 Round Trips

IB+:
6,500 points needed / 800 (points R.T. average) = 8.12 Round Trips


So, who cares about IB+?

That's a starting point; but if that airline upgrades its elites <1% of the time, you may reconsider it...

HON is 150K miles per year now? Wow, when I looked at it is was something like 600K miles over 2 years, so even in F it was 100K flown miles per year (or monthly trans-Atlantic in F on LH). I don�t track LH too closely as I only fly them when it is convenient, but LH has really improved in the past couple of years and HON does seem to be a �better than Emerald� status that is attainable. Even for SEN LH has been very obliging in the past (more than Emerald).

Flying these past 3 weeks has been such a hassle, though, that I�m seriously considering cutting back and just not flying.

Probably not <100. But there can't be that many of them either as 300000 miles or whatever the limit is really isn't achievable by anyone else but frequent, long haul business class travellers. I know exactly one person.

Everyone else in Finland, including me, who have mainly short haul business trips are actually BA FF:s. I can easily maintain my emerald status with BA gold. (LHR-CAI-LHR once a year in F, 360 points, ka-ching). On AY I probably wouldn't even be able to get their gold card making me a disgraceful ruby basically without any lounge access. I wouldn't even dream of a platinum card with a couple of short haul business trips and an AONE3 a year.

So the Arlanda emerald lounge people are probably 90% BA gold members.

/hv

I thought the Finnair points were based on kilometers, and business class counted double, and first class triple, so ~62500 miles in F, or ~94000 in J earns Platinum. And most shorthaul earns more points than the actual km (Finland to Scandinavia 1500, to Germany 2000, x2 in J) right?.

The only thing with *A is that there seems to be an awful lot of *G, so much so that at check-in *G seems to be as long as the Y lines sometimes. OW seems to really have a tiered structure. which seems to have better benefits for people flying on airlines within the alliance other than their own "home" airline. So if you are flying LH as the majority of your travel then as a HON you will be looked after well but you would only be *G on any other *A carriers. In the last year I have flown on all but IB and EI of the OW carriers and I find OW to be a more seamless alliance. Just my $0.02

My partner and I are both EXP; we travel together very frequently; never, on any OW flight (including IB), have we ever received an op-up or any other kind of special attention, even with paid first or business class tickets in hand.

You want an op-up from a paid first class ticket ?

Somebody really wants to ride in that #3 seat.

It takes some traveling to do the 300000 kms, but it's amazing sometimes to see on the HEL-LHR or HEL-CDG how many passengers have that aluminium trolley. I somehow think that they are or have been AY Plats.

As said previously many of my colleagues have signed for the AA plat challenge. For some of them the BA Exec Club program was too difficult, because they didn't fly enough on BA.

I think Traveloguy was really thinking about SEN (for members based in Germany and Austria), not HON. As you point out, HON requires 600K flown on specific airlines.

No, up-grades just from business or economy class, thank you; and also a little bit of attention from time to time, rather than being brushed aside (by IB staff) as just one more of that troublesome group known as passengers that they'd really rather not have to both to deal with.

I have not had a single op-up on *A to date.
However with OW I have had quite a few with BA, twice with CX and once with QF & AA.

I was once involuntarily downgraded from F to Y on domestic UA as an LH *G.