Hello,

I will be flying mainly economy international flights, originating in Canada, Europe, or the Middle East. Quite a few flights will be on British Airways, but from my understanding, BA is not a good program to use when flying economy as many flights would not accrue qualifying miles.

Someone suggested American Airlines as the best option, as almost all flights will accrue points.

If anyone can make some suggestions, it would be very appreciated.

Thanks

Jason

AA has the best overall program, but you need to be aware that AA does not give full miles for BA flights in discount Y either. If you want to fly cheap BA Y fares then there is no good program for you.

Thanks, but at least with AA I would probably get some points... with BA, I don't get any qualifying miles at all from what I can tell.

Although it only applies to booking code "L" and does not mention the new alliance members, you might find the table in post no. 7 in this thread - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=338667 - of some use.

This is a good thread to post my question:

In general, I'm not travelling very much due to money issues ;-)

During the last 3 months, I travelled RTW on a oneworld-RTW-ticket. So I set up a quantas FF-account, because I had many domestic flights in AU, and their "minimum 1000 points on domestic flights"-condition seemed to be very nice. All in all, i received approx. 30 000 points and got the silver status (oneworld ruby)

Now, I'm back home in europe (Austria), and Australia is far away. In other words, i think I won't travel with qantas very often in the next years. I plan to do some flights within europe and maybe a flight to the US in the next few years.

So what shall I do? Staying at the qantas FF programme (because of all the points), or is it a better bargain to redeem the qantas-points as fast as I can, and change to the BA-programme? Some general hints/suggestions?

thx4help, I'm far away from being a travel xpert...

Welcome to FT Mr. Radar

Qantas has started enforcing the rule requiring 4 QF segments per year in order to (re)qualify for status.

QFF awards are expensive, although the program has the advantage of being able to credit both BA & AA trans-atlantic flights (whereas AA & BA programs are only able to credit own flights for trans-atlantic).

thx for the nice welcome!

Do they count it as QF segment, if I buy a BA ticket, which is sold as a QF ticket?

So do you think it's better to change to the BA programme? could I transfer my status?

do you know a webpage (or a thread in this forum) where the advantages and disadvantages of the oneworld-FF programmes are compared?

thx again

It is counted if it is a QF flight number and point earning. While many BA flights have QF codeshares, they cannot be purchased without a longhaul sector.

You cannot transfer points or status between 2 programs within an alliance.

There are threads comparing the merits of the various one world programs in different situations.

If you don't have much at stake (low current status and not that many points), it may be better to consider all possible programs (not just one world) as to what suits your expected travel patterns.

ok, thx. i think i'll sign up for Miles and more for flights within europe (because austrian airlines' hub is VIE, my "home airport") and collect miles&more-points by credit card. for my longhaul flights i'll sign up for the BA programme.

in general, I'm not travelling very much, just about 4 flights(return) per year (most of them just within europe), my recent RTW trip was an exception. So, I'm quite sure that I won't get any status in the future; the more important question is, how long are unused points lasting until they are removed?

Don't go for BA if you don't travel much in the higher booking classes. Someone in family flying a lot of medium/longhauls from LHR/LGW got so tired with their "miles for full fares only" policy that ditched them for VS recently.

How about Malev just around the corner from Vienna? It might not be the best program either but if flying via Budapest you could use their flagship lounges and I'm sure they are targeting the Austrian market with some attractive campaigns.