Choosing the best FF program
 

I'm a newbie. I have a question about choosing the FF program.
I usually fly around ~20k/year,possibly more in next year. most of my miles are from Asiana Airlines. However, I have read that their earn/burn ratio is really bad and they don't have many promotions. My current plan is to get *G status from them.
I have considered UA. However, UA calculates miles based on Jan-Dec so I cannot achieve any status since I travel most of the time in the summer. On the other hand, Asiana Airlines use "reference day" to calculate so it's easier for me to get my miles counted toward *G status.
It will take me about a year and a half to get *G status while I will get nothing with UA. However, I'm only 18 so I'm sure I will travel more often. Should I continue with Asiana Airlines or change into another program?

Thanks a lot!

Welcome to FT!

OZ is really only good for *G status. If you want to use miles but don't need status than UA, AC etc are much better.
So with 20k miles per year you need to decide what is more important to you. By the way, the other program you might want to check out is TK M&S which has a very easy qualification for *G as well and better earn/burn.

Wow, I just looked at Asiana. It is amazing. I might join--it seems to easy to be *Gold. What am I missing?

You are missing the fact that

a) some booking classes earn very little and
b) You don't earn many miles but need tons of them to book a redemption
c) they will expire and there is nothing you can do about it other than use them
d) You can't do much on the website and their offices are not always the easiest to deal with unless you speak Korean.

TK and AC are other programs with easy *G status.

Thanks for your suggestion. While looking around, I found the Aegean Airlines FF program that is really easy to qualify: 4k for *S, another 16k for *G. However, I don't see anyone talking about this FF program yet. I'm not sure about the earn/burn ratio either. Is it a good program?

Aegean is not yet fully integrated, so many here are probably suspending judgment. From the sounds of it though, it may be a great alternative to OZ, although one plus already mentioned is the reference date, which means both my outbound and return Christmas/New Year's trips will count for the same year (and finally get me from OZ Gold to * Gold).

Edit: I also completely forgot about the upcoming merger with Olympus. That of course complicates things.

Actually Aegean is already a full member of Star Alliance, they joined on 06/30/10 and indeed it appears that their program has the lowest requirements for *G out there.

And they will be merging with Olympic (the airline) rather than Olympus (the camera manufacturer) :)

Ha! I thought you'd mentiuon the mountain, not the camera. ;) I thought Aegean was in, and it appears they are, but at least this morning they lacked a link on the Star Alliance website. At any rate, I'd love to fly them since the talk here is that they run great flights.

I'm an ElitePlus member on Skyteam based in the States, but I'm being forced to fly a *A itinerary on Air New Zealand for business. The trip should yield about 20k miles.

I'm not super familiar with the *A program and have a couple of questions:

-being based in PDX in the States, which airline would you recommend making my "base airline"...CO? UA?
-I'm currently trying to match my Platinum Delta status on CO and using this account to collect the miles from the Air NZ trip. Is this a wise choice?

Any recommendations would be super helpful.

Thanks.

You'll see a lot of different opinions on this site, and doing a bit of searching will give you some ideas to chew over. Basically, it boils down to which airline you will fly the most, and also comparing programs. As you may be aware, UA and CO are working on merging, which may affect your decision.

A lot of folks like UA and find it fairly easy to use, however there are issues with what is called Starnet Blocking, where UA makes it difficult to get award on other *A partners. I don't recall if they don't allow UA miles for *A upgrades or if that has changed, as I don't use their program that much.

If I had to choose between UA and CO, however, I'd go for UA. There are many CO loyalists who would vote otherwise, so spend some time on the respective forums and get a feel for each one!

Happy hunting - oh and you'll enjoy NZ, both the airline and the country! :)