Best Program with easy to earn and maintain status?
 

Hello everybody
Im new to FF, have been reading some posts but they don't exactly meet my criteria, so hopefully you can point me to the right direction to begin with.

1: i'm Vietnamese and fly with Vietnam Airline ~10 times per year. Their GoldenLotusProgram requires at least 12 flights per year to earn and mantain Silver membership on a year to year basic so I'm not qualified :(. And VN is small so mileage is low :td:
They'll be joining skyteam in early 2010, so I'm looking for a skyteam program to be a long term member :-:

2: I fly an average of 30k miles a year from Orlando FL to VN, back and forth. (22k miles per round trip, once or twice a year). And 10 short flight in VN as mentioned above

I look for a program that is:
-easy to earn status (hopefully equivalent to Skyteam Elite plus) that doesn't require renewal too soon like VNAirline, or too many miles to renew.
-can share mileage with friends/family. can buy more mileage if needed
-easy and cheap mileage redemption for short flights in Asia
-100% miles are counted if possible, as I only buy cheap economy tickets.
-easy to earn BIG miles by shopping/special offers etc. But no hotels. I hate paying to expensive hotel as I'm in hotel business :o
-extra checked bags would be nice. I do shopping a lot.

Wow, I got the feeling that I'm asking for too much :mad:
So, thank you very much for taking your time to help me out :D

Sincerely,
Khiem Bui

Why not stay with VN? You have 10 of the 12 segments domestically plus at least 4 more for Orlando, so you have silver without any change of habits.

OK Plus (Czech) has a lower than average requirement for status, 15 segments for Silver or 30 for gold (ST+). There are some major changes occurring there as well so research before jumping in. Big mile bonus promotions seem to be the domain of US and UK carriers so I would suggest Delta if that has a lot of weight.

because they have few to none bonus mileage options, and membership expires every 1 year so if I'm stuck with a big research or a seasonal project, I'll lose my status.

I think if you fly from FL to Vietnam one or two times a year, that should be the deciding factor. As that alone would propel you to the dizzy heights of Skyteam Elite or even Elite Plus :D:D

Look at it this way. If your next big trip to Vietnam is before VN joins Skyteam - which one little birdie told me we could expect in December 2009 or Jan 2010 - you won't be able to credit it to your new favorite FFP, right? So just stick with whichever program you use - VN (or Asia Miles).

But... if it's after the big day, all the other programs will have published their earning on VN metal by then. As you know which booking classes VN lowest fares book into on your regular long hauls, it'll be pretty easy to weed out programs that don't give you full miles for that. (You will have to ask nicely someone who's a member of OK+ to check this for you as one now needs to be logged in with their account details on their website to see the earning ratios :mad:)

So just wait and see till VN actually join and all the earning rates are published. Then do your research and come back with the schemes you have in mind - it'll be much easier to decide.

Here is VietnamAirlines's "earing point calculation"
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2608/...b5e20970ef.jpg

I normally go with those 2 economy classes and I think I'm ok with 70-100%.

i've been looking at delta skymiles and it's pretty cheap (costs less miles) to get an award ticket. Do they let us redeem those miles to fly with other Skyteam members? Like redeem Delta Skymiles for VietnamAirlines' domestic flight. Because when i search it mostly shows NorthWest flights (which belongs to delta) as well as some Delta's. Don't see any other Airlines

There is no comprehensive published award chart for burning Skymiles but keep in mind it is three tiered. In theory you can redeem on any Skyteam airline, not all are available online so you would have to call to check availabilty.