TG vs BD for 2010
 

As I'm about to embark on my first trip of the year I need to decide where to bank my *A miles.

I have both TG*G and BD*G. My BD*G is comped while my TG*G is earned. I am in the 1st year of a new 2 year period of being TG*G. I also have a comped LH*S but that seems irrelevant.

I'll be based in DEL and flying mostly within Asia/ANZ and mostly on TG metal. I will also be flying to the US once or twice and plan to do that on AA/OW.

All of my flights are in Y, mostly on cheaper tickets. I sometimes find myself on TG V class tickets which don't even earn miles on TG. Each time I did a standby upgrade on TG it was on V class tickets so no points. :td:

If I bank this year with Thai I can extend my gold status by another 2 years beyond 2011. I also earn another Gold Upgrade.

What are my benefits with regards to re-qualifying with BD? Is there any value to doing so in order to stage myself to have LH*G assuming they merge DC into M&M?

Suggestions? Other options I'm not looking at?

Yoshi,

if you look at my profile you see I´m almost in the same boat except UA to which I credit all my US travel and some more to enjoy these valuable (for my patterns) SWUs.

So it´s between ROP and DC. Given you have status with TG until 2011: Why not filling your DC account and enjoy some much cheaper rewards out of it, perhaps even your US travel so you can skip OW and have lounge access enroute and in the US? <India-US with DC is 80,000 miles in Y, 120,000 in C vs. ROP 120,000 (Y) or 180,000 (C) for the use with any *A carriers>.

From what I read a potential merger LH/BD is not happening in the short/medium time frame.

F.R.

Edit: Just re-looked your profile to learn that lounge access won´t bother you

Lounge access is an issue when I fly CX/QF from time to time. I've got 760K lifetime AA miles which is why I continue to fly OW now and then. I am trying to get to 1M and then of course 2M.

Redeeming on BD does look much better than ROP. I wonder if I can redeem online using the PNR like I can with ROP though.

Isn´t online redemption limited to flights on TG and ex-BKK? With DC one can only book their own flights as well, for the rest you´ll have to call.

F.R.

I should have qualified that I was talking about upgrade redemption. Once I have an PNR I can go to the TG website and upgrade a flight assuming it is 2 days ahead of time.