Which Oneworld programme to join?
 

Hello,

I normally fly VS out of Heathrow, but it looks like there is quite a bit of BA in my future due to a few upcoming business trips to destinations where VS does not fly.

I'm trying to decide which Oneworld programme I should join. I've read that BA has the world's least generous FF programme and that it takes forever to earn enough miles for an upgrade, much less a free flight -- is this true? I have a few miles with AA but not enough to make it a clear choice.

My main priorities are:
A) Mileage thresholds for FF seats
B) Being able to get FF credit for discount economy class
C) Ability to use miles to upgrade on BA

I fly primarily UK-US and UK-Africa routes.

Cheers,
Julian

If you fly BA to the US and back, you can't earn or redeem AA miles on those flights (unless I guess you take the AA codeshare from MAN).

As far as I understand it, in oneworld, you can't use one airline's ff miles to upgrade when flying another airline in the alliance (Star Alliance does let one do this).

For those reasons, I'd suggest just going with BA.

QF is another choice.
Some transatrantic restriction is not applied.

By the way, CX's asiamiles program can upgrade AA/BA/KA round trip flights. It is one of exception.

I would go for Asia miles. If you do not care about status.To reach status you have to pay a fee $50 IIRC and join Marco Polo, CX program. Beware that there are some restrictions in earning in the lower fare buckets.

While BA is generally not particularly generous, it does have one great bargain. Round trip trans-atlantic upgrade from WT+ to Club World (business class) for only 25000 miles. I don't think there are any other airlines that really match this. There is a big but, however. You get only 25% miles for flying the cheaper economy seats and this can really kill you. So it depends what class you will be flying in to begin with.

Sure, but still rather mean program. Earning and status earning on most economy travel is very poor.

If the OP can fly AA trans-atlantic then I'd suggest AAdvantage (the non-earning on BA flights only applies trans-atlantic so UK-africa/europe/asia on BA would still earn ok on AAdvantage).

Not quite true. For example, the upgrade for LHR-JFK is only 22,500 with Asia Miles.

The disadvantages relative to BAEC are that (1) some BA discount economy fares (i.e., outside K, L, M, R) earn 0 Asia Miles (even 25% miles would be better than 0); (2) availability may be less favorable; (3) it will probably take longer to achieve sapphire or emerald with MPO than BAEC; (4) no status bonus with MPO if OP achieves sapphire or emerald status; (5) no chance to augment mileage-earning with UK-based credit cards or loyalty cards (e.g., Tesco).