Hi all,

I have a flight from HKG to LAX on Asiana in the next couple of weeks on a business class ticket. I usually fly VS so am not a member of any other FFP (other than Hilton HHonors) but want to make sure my miles don't go to waste from the journey. Can anyone suggest a FFP that will make best use of the miles as a transfer from Asiana Club or another Star Alliance programme?

Many thanks!

i would say that Asiana Club is one of the best ffp for star alliance, or for any alliance for that matter. with one round trip HKG to LAX can make you at least a Gold member.

LAX/F ICN/C BKK to UA.

Asiana gold (which is *A silver) isn't really worth much. you only get 2 lounge coupons to access asiana lounges in icn with 12 month validity.

you need to fly at least 40,000 miles in the 2 year qualifying period and get to diamond (*A gold) for there to be any real benefits of an upper tier member.

Good for you. Now that you have shared your status with us, perhaps you could give the OP some useful information.

Since the OP usually flies VS, I don't think he's really interested in obtaining status on *A, but more concerned about crediting the redeemable miles where they will be useful (OP, please correct me if I'm wrong). You don't state where you are located, which potentially has an effect on what choices make sense, but I'll assume you are US based.

The trip should be 7268 miles each way, I'm assuming a round-trip of 14,536 miles in business.


Asiana Club
Depending on the fare class your ticket is booked in, you receive 100%-135%, so 14,536-19,624 Asiana Club miles. Asiana has a zone-based award chart, and allows one-way travel for half the mileage (on Asiana), so this is enough for some short-haul travel on Asiana.

United
Depending on the fare class your ticket is booked in, you receive 100%-135%, so 14,536-19,624 MileagePlus miles. This is enough for a one-way domestic saver award on United.


In light of this, I'd consider crediting to a program with a mileage based award chart like:

ANA
Most business class tickets on OZ accrue 125% on NH, so 18170 Mileage Club miles would be credited. ANA has a distance-based award chart, so this is enough for most domestic round-trips (on ANA, depending on season), or international travel of up to 4,000 miles (total, on ANA, depending on season).

Another good question is do you plan on any travel that can't be credited to VS, that might be combined with this trip's mileage? Also, depending on your travel patterns, planning to use this mileage for an upgrade rather than an outright award ticket may make more sense.

Asiana also partners with some non-*A carriers, like EY and QR.

Adding on to FPC552's excellent hints, a few more considerations:

OZ miles have a much longer validity than UA miles, so if you're not looking at redeeming them within the next few years (e.g. because you want to wait for more miles to be added from the occasional *A flight), then the OZ program is better than UA.

On the other hand, I've found UA's FFP one of the best ones for actually redeeming miles. Back when I was using their FFP, at least, they only charged a nominal processing fee of 5-15 dollars for a flight, meaning that they were pretty much truly "free" bonus flights, as opposed to OZ, where a flight in Y ends up costing pretty much half the regular fare. Also, if you're US-based, UA offers a lot of alternative ways of using miles, such as magazine subscriptions or their online shopping mall. Haven't found anything of interest in the latter myself, but I picked up a cheap WSJ subscription to use most of my last remaining miles recently.

Well, UA actually allows one to extend the life of the mileage balance with any activity within an 18 month period. Thus, UA miles can potentially have a much longer shelf life with minimal work. One major down side with UA is the upcoming changes on earning miles, especially for regular members, whereas the number of miles earned is based on the cost of the ticket (at least on UA metal, it's unclear how this scheme is applied to partner tickets).

LAX

The UA website does state the following in regards to the new 2015 program.

This new way of earning award miles will apply to most tickets for flights operated by United and United Express. It will also apply to tickets for flights operated by a Star Alliance™ or MileagePlus partner airline when the ticket number starts with "016."

Tickets for flights operated by a Star Alliance™ or MileagePlus partner airline that aren’t issued by United (ticket numbers that don’t start with “016”) will still earn award miles based on distance flown and the purchased fare class.

So in order to earn the actual flight miles, you'll have to book direct with the partner airline and credit mileage to UA instead according to UA's mileage accrual chart with partner airlines.

Since OP mostly fly VS, I would NEVER suggest anyone to credit to NH, as NH's miles expire in 3 years if one cannot reach NH Diamond.


Actually not really, as long as you link a credit/debit card to UA shopping/dining, so that you have activity in your account (not just flying) just once in 18 months, your miles will last forever, unlike OZ old miles will expire no matter you have activity in your account or not.