Please help with FFP
 

Hi!

Me and my girl is travelling LONE5 starting next month. We live in Sweden and has a preliminary booking via BA. I've tried to figure out what FFP to use but its a jungle! According to posts here BA is a bad choice...? I hope to be able to use the earned points for an additional flight or car rental. Do you think AAdvantage is better for us?

W/o knowing your routing and, more important, the carriers you will be flying on (L class does not post to 100% to every FFP), it's quite difficult to give you some advice. Could you please post your routing and airlines?

General wisdom on FT is that AAdvantage is the best program overall. Anyway, this might not be true for every routing. The only thing I can tell you is to avoid BAEC since it's the "least generous" oneworld FFP if you fly economy.

PS: if you want to save some money, issue your tickets through AA instead of BA. They will charge you much less for the fuel surcharges than BA.

Thanks!

Is it true that I don't get any points from the london-montreal flight from AA?

Here from the preliminary booking:

--------------------------------------------------------
From: Arlanda (Stockholm), Sweden
to Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
Cabin: Euro Traveller
Operated By: British Airways
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
to Montreal (Trudeau), Canada
Cabin: World Traveller
Operated By: British Airways
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Montreal (Trudeau), Canada
to John F Kennedy (New York), USA
Operated By: American A L
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Los Angeles, USA
to Lima, Peru
Operated By: LANPERU
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Lima, Peru
to Buenos Aires (Pistarini), Argentina
Operated By: Lanperu
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Buenos Aires (Pistarini), Argentina
to Santiago (Chile), Chile
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Santiago (Chile), Chile
to IPC
Operated By: Lan Chile
--------------------------------------------------------
From: IPC
to Papeete, French Polynesia
Operated By: Lan Chile
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Auckland, New Zealand
to Sydney, Australia
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Sydney, Australia
to Darwin, Australia
Operated By: Qantas A W
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Darwin, Australia
to Perth, Australia
Operated By: Qantas A W
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Perth, Australia
to Singapore, Singapore
Operated By: QANTAS AIRWAYS
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Singapore, Singapore
to Narita (Tokyo), Japan
Operated By: Japan A L
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Narita (Tokyo), Japan
to Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Operated By: Cathay Pacific
--------------------------------------------------------
From: HGK
to Mumbai (Bombay), India
Operated By: Cathay Pacific
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Mumbai (Bombay), India
to Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
Cabin: World Traveller
Operated By: British Airways
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Heathrow (London), United Kingdom
to Arlanda (Stockholm), Sweden
Cabin: Euro Traveller
Operated By: British Airways

I'm not an expert about AAdvantage, but my understanding is as follows (for L class):
- BA flights will earn 25% of miles flown
- QF flights will earn 50%
- AA, LA/LP will earn 100%
- CX, JL will earn nothing.

You will get miles from London to Montreal. Only BA flights to/from the US are excluded (UK-Canada is OK).

If you post to QF instead of AA you will get 100% on QF and LA, 50% on CX, JL and AA, 25% on BA. Looking at your routing, it looks like you will end up with more points in this case. Anyway QF points are worth less than AA points in terms of "purchasing power".

I'm sure somebody will come up with exact calculations here on FT :)

I rewrote your itinerary to have a better overview:

ARN-xLHR-YUL-JFK//LAX-LIM-EZE-SCL-IPC-PPT//AKL-SYD-DRW-PER-SIN-NRT-HKG-BOM-xLHR-ARN

If I counted correctly, you only have 19 segments (including surface transfers) in your itinerary so you might add one somewhere.

Another FFP option may be Alaska Airlines (AS). They give you 100% on AA, QF, LA, 50% on CX, 25% on BA; unfortunately no credit for JL. If you change your direct SIN-NRT on JL to a SIN-xHKG-NRT on CX (using your additional segment here), you will get miles. On top of that, AS partners also with Delta (DL), Air France (AF) and a few others, so it might be very attractive an option.

From my calculations, you would come up with following total of points (approximates):
- AA: 18400
- QF: 26000
- AS: 24000 (without changing routing)

Therefore I’d go for AS or QF.

I would go with AA, and I also would suggest looking at some minor changes in routing that would get you more miles and let you avoid Heathrow. If you ticketed it through AA in Stockholm rather than BA, you'd also probably avoid some additional fuel surcharges and fees. The AA general sales agent in Sweden (TAL Aviation) is very competent.

ARN-HEL-JFK-YUL-LAX-DFW-LIM-EZE-SCL-IPC-PPT-AKL-SYD-DRW-PER-SIN-NRT-HKG-DEL-HEL-ARN, 20 coupons and 19 "counting" flights. (The PPT-AKL sector is not eligible in the OW ticket but the "surface" segment has to be counted. However, Air Tahiti Nui, which operates the PPT-AKL flight, is an AA partner and would earn full miles in L class.)

Finnair also earns 1 AA mile per flown mile in L class, so worth the switch from BA in my opinion. HEL is a much easier airport to navigate than LHR as well. By switching your route to DEL instead of BOM in India (then use low cost local carriers to move around the subcontinent) you can avoid another open-jaw, and just return to Helsinki on Finnair's nonstop, again avoiding Heathrow.

Regarding mileage earning, if you take the AA codeshares on ARN-HEL-JFK, use the US segments including the transcon, and then fly to Lima on AA from Dallas rather than on Lan from LAX, and if it's less than 3 months from leaving Sweden before you reach Lima, then you could enroll for AA's Platinum Challenge, and receive 100% bonus miles on some carriers once you've reached 10,000 qualifying points, which I estimate would occur on your DFW-LIM flight. You'd also get lounge access and other benefits as Platinums.

Counting the eligible bonuses that would follow, I make your total mileage yield on AA to be in the neighborhood of 50,000 miles for the whole trip, i.e. enough for a transatlantic award or one to India or the middle east, or a couple within Europe. Might be worth the effort to amend your itinerary.

But you need to calculate what those points will get you for a reward flight, including what taxes & fuel surcharges you need to pay out as cash. QF will likely be on the bottom of the 3

Thank you very much for the help!! I'll go with AA and contact them in Stockholm today :)

I'll post the results of this trip so we can compare the before with actual results.

Thanks again!