beachmouse

If you don't know if/when you'll fly with SkyTeam again, Delta miles don't have a hard or soft expiration date while FB does (and the current rules are set up to require flights to push out the expiration date for miles earned from flights). So I'd just park the miles with Delta and let them set. Despite the SkyPeso reuptation, they can be useful for economy redemptions in North America.

Rukes

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades, priority services, baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, lounge access, etc.
>>> Reply: Lounge access, priority services

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
first, business, premium economy, economy
>>> Reply: Premium Economy

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply: Yes, work.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
transatlantic, domestic USA, intra-Asia, etc.
>>> Reply: USA and USA-Asia

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: LAX

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply: Executive Platinum in AA, and *G in Asiana

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply: Delta, China Airlines in Skyteam

Basically, looking for a good program to hopefully easily get Elite Plus status with a handful of longhaul international PE flights.

I'm on Air Europa now, which is easy to get to Elite Plus, but they are planning on leaving if the deal goes through. Plus they are extremely slow with adding/changing fare class adjustments in flights (like China Airlines added A class for Standard PE flights. Seems every other airline on SkyTeam has it on their charts while Air Europa doesn't). I don't want to hit Elite Plus and then find out I have to switch programs anyway.

Looked at Vietnam Airlines and while easy to get to Elite, it still takes the same amount of work to Elite Plus for other airlines. Plus it has horrible earning rates with Delta.

Looked at FlyingBlue and the XP system isn't that great, I would need more flights to get the same status elsewhere since I don't fly business or first.

My current idea is to status match my AA with Delta to get Platinum, and enjoy that for a bit. I wouldn't get lounge access domestically on Delta, unfortunately, but since I rarely do fly Delta domestic it won't be an issue. Plus with the two longhaul trips i'm going on Nov/Dec I can easily hit the status challenge mark with around 36,000 MQM. Having Silver at only 25,000 means I can technically make it especially with the MQM rollovers (and of course high MQD with international PE).

jannosk

Hello there

please help me choose

I am lost with SkyTeam


1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades, priority services, baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, lounge access, etc.
>>> Reply: Good award redemption rate, better award access

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
less than 25000 miles, 50000+ miles and 20-25 flights, etc.
>>> Reply: 20.000 plus in J maybe more

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
first, business, premium economy
>>> Reply:
Business class with Saudia and Vietnam airways ( I will maybe some KLM )

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply: The airline usually is Saudia, I travel for pleasure

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
transatlantic, domestic USA, intra-Asia, etc.
>>> Reply: Europe to Asia and intra-Asia

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: Athens

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply: I am Gold in Star Alliance A3 I have a lot of miles there


8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?

>>> Reply: Saudia, Vietnam airlines KLM

Thank you
Jannos

breathesrain

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades, priority services, baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, lounge access, etc.
>>> Reply:
Award access, award redemption rates, and upgrades, in that order.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
less than 25000 miles, 50000+ miles and 20-25 flights, etc.
>>> Reply:
Right now all my flying is for leisure, and I'm trying to get better at leveraging credit cards and miles to expand my opportunities, so I don't have a good answer for this.

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
first, business, premium economy, economy
>>> Reply:
i usually buy economy but would prefer to use awards for business+.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply:
Yes - I live in NYC so have good access to lots of airlines. Travel pretty much only for pleasure.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
transatlantic, domestic USA, intra-Asia, etc.
>>> Reply:
domestic USA but definitely interested in more international travel

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply:
NYC (LGA ideally but any of the big three)

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply:
nothing worth mentioning, just a few miles here and there

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply
Delta

i have an upcoming flight to Hawaii and am planning on banking the miles to VS because it works out to a substantially better amount than Delta, but I don't know if I should be concerned at how it's apparently impossible to book awards on Delta flights with either VS or FlyingBlue. I know VS isn't skyteam but I'm not sure if that's enough of a reason to rule it out considering how many more miles I'll get with how the fare coding translates (three legs of a flight in D = 400% miles and halfway to a status upgrade).

blueferrari

just realised that the easiest way to gain ST Elite+ is fly DPS-LOP by Garuda Indonesia
domestically they only sell Y subclass, which will result in 3 freq in GA Miles in a segment.
STE+ in GA Miles is Platinum tier, which requires 65,000 miles or 65 freq.

DPS-LOP is now about USD 65. it will need 11 rt trips, for total amount of USD 715.

catch: GA Miles is not really useful for redemption (high redemption rate)

gkbiiii

I am thinking Aero Mexico has the best program and has a high earning tier rate on Delta flights. The Round the World ticket looks good too, as too its CapOne Venture Card mileage transfer partnership.

Mwenenzi

With awards earning is only 50%. What is the cost of awards? Any carrier surcharges? Earn to burn/surcharge is what matters.

Is the Round the World ticket an award or the normal Star Alliance RTW that all Star airlines can sell?
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/othe...-airlines-472/

gkbiiii

https://www.clubpremier.com/us/about...he-world-pass/ SKYTEAM® GO ROUND THE WORLD PASS

Club Premier Award Ticket: Economy Class

Clase Premier / Business Class

SkyTeam® Go Round the World Award Tickets allow you to travel across the globe, with up to 15 stopovers before returning to your point of origin, always traveling in the same direction, either east-bound or west-bound, on all routes served by SkyTeam® .

Call the Club Premier Customer Service Center to order your SkyTeam® Award Tickets.

SkyTeam™ Go Round the World Pass

224,000 Km Economy

352,000 Km Business

Mwenenzi

1 mile = 1.6 km
Check earn to burn

gkbiiii

Terms & Conditions

• The trip in question must involve travel in the same direction, namely, eastwards or westwards.
• Seats are subject to availability and confirmation by participating carriers.
• Applies only to flights operated by SkyTeam™ airlines.
• Travel must begin and return to the same country.
• A minimum of three stopovers is required, with a maximum of 15 stopovers permitted during a trip, with a maximum of five stopovers per continent.
• For the purpose of SkyTeam™ Go Round the World Passes, a stopover means any city on the itinerary in which passengers wish to remain more than 24 hours before continuing travel.
• The cities of origin and final destination do not count as stopovers.
• Flights between stopovers must either be scheduled for direct or immediate connections.
• Travel may originate in any city in the world, as long as the flight is operated by a SkyTeam™ airline.
• Pass applies to following travel regions: North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania (Australia) and Asia.
• Passengers may remain at each stopover as long as they wish, provided tickets are still valid.
• Class of service: Economy and Business Class/Clase Premier. All flights must be booked in the same class: Economy or Business.
• Valid for one year after ticket issue date.
• https://www.clubpremier.com/us/about...he-world-pass/

• Aeromexico
• Aeroflot
• Aerolíneas Argentinas
• AirEuropa
• Air France
• KLM
• Alitalia
• China Airlines
• China Eastern
• China Southern
• Czech Airlines
• Delta
• Kenya Airlines
• Korean Air
• Middle East Airlines
• Saudia Arabian
• Tarom
• Vietnam Airlines

siw

Why are SkyTeam members Garuda Indonesia and XiamenAir missing from that list? Also, China Southern Airlines is no longer a SkyTeam member. This SkyTeam webpage is the most detailed for the RTW: https://www.skyteam.com/en/business-...-world-planner and contains more information than the Quick Reference Guide (https://www.skyteam.com/en/round-the...eference-guide).

flashware

I'm conflicted as to where to credit upcoming flights to, there's a few things at play here. I'm not sure how often I'll have to fly ST (I'm BA Gold easily each year on OW) so I wouldn't work things out based on any guaranteed rate of travel. My last ST flight was nearly a decade ago.

I'm looking at either Delta (who I used last time to credit to) given no expiry, Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic (given I have a stash of miles also). All 3 programs I can credit my AMEX miles to which I believe that takes care of any miles expiry issues? I will sign up for Bluebiz regardless, as you may as well double dip (the same as I do with BA and BA OnBusiness).

Earnings on VS appear better than DL, but there's not many reports of crediting AF code flights to VS since the announcement/change was made by VS last year.

My upcoming flights are a mix of J and Z
https://www.wheretocredit.com/air-france/j (short haul tends to book into this on my connecting trips)
https://www.wheretocredit.com/air-france/j (my mid/long haul tends to book into this on my connecting trips)

I can status match to VS and get Gold right away (possibly), but VS seems to require crediting of a VS flight to seal the deal, rather than AF/KL (which is the flights I'd be taking).

Flying Blue has the benefit of being able to double dip by also earning Accor Live Limitless rewards also.

One more to throw into the ring, Air Europa. The miles could sit there and turn into Avios...... if/when that deal closes, but that's not guaranteed and with no easy way to earn miles in the program otherwise, they could expire.

Questions

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: good award redemption rates
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply:1-4 trips, 4 sectors per trip (2x short-haul, 2x mid/long-haul) 5-30,000 miles / year
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Reply: Business
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: For ST it tends to be work related, there's little choice in airlines as not many service the routes I travel
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
Reply: UK to Africa
(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: LHR/LGW
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in an airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Reply: BA Gold (large balance), miles held in VS (medium balance) and DL (small balance)
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: AF/KL/DL

beachmouse

FB has different expiration dates for miles earned for flight and non-flight activity and unless you have the FB credit card, which IIRC covers both miles pools, transferring points from MR or UR programs will not push out the expiration of miles earned from flights.

Delta has great US domestic main cabin redemptions and occasionally very useful award sales but you’ll be very disappointed if your goal is long haul premium cabin-200k+ for transatlantic business.

The concern with Virgin is long term airline stability but if you keep up with any expiration date concerns and feel a little lucky, their reward redemption options can be better then Delta.

flashware

That's good to know, sounds like it's not worth looking at FB. I find the DL miles are useful for short hops in the US, so maybe I'll just keep putting them there. I could match my BA Gold to DL Platinum via a challenge too.

beachmouse

SkyTeam Elite+ has some useful benefits but there’s also going to be a huge glut of DL Platinums for the next year and or two because of how they handled MQM rollover generously during the pandemic and it’s likely going to end up ‘when everyone is special, no one is special’ on the Delta side.