Greetings All -

Have lurked around the past few days but to be honest I'm not educated enough on this stuff to even know what I don't know.

I have an upcoming trip, where I'll fly coach on AA from ORD-LAX, then business class from LAX-SIN on SQ. Return flight on SQ from SIN-LAX, and finally United (coach) LAX-ORD.

I really don't have any miles to speak of but am enrolled in the United Mileage Plus and AAdvantage programs (both with less than 1000 miles), I've gone ORD-LHR business class on BA twice in the past year, but I guess those miles don't count toward the AA mileage program so haven't done anything with those. Otherwise no travel to speak of.

So two questions :

1) For the upcoming trip to Singapore, do I sign up for Krisflyer, and then transfer those into my United MP account, or is there a better way ?

2) Realize this may not be the best forum, but is there anyway that I can somehow combine the miles (or do anything with else with them) I've flown on BA with those I'm about to fly on SQ ?

End goal is to ultimately use the miles for a tickets from ORD-MCO next year for a trip if that helps ?

Thanks, and go easy on me. I am at your mercy !

Chris

As a Star Alliance airline, your United Mileage Plus account will be just fine to collect your Singapore miles. Just present that when checking in.

Your British Airways flights both would have counted into your AAdvantage account, too - massively! They're both in the oneworld airline alliance. If one was relatively recent, it's worthwhile trying to claim (if you still have the boarding pass).

You can't merge the two: oneworld isn't Star Alliance. It would have been better to have stuck to one airline alliance for all your flight: in this case, flying ORD-LAX with United, US Airways or Continental (who are all Star Alliance).

Ignore the airline brand: it's the alrline alliances that do the hard work.

This is correct.

This is not.

There is a quirk in the AA/BA relationship that one cannot ear or redeem miles on USA-London routes on the partner. So one cannot earn AA miles on a BA-operated ORD-LHR flight.

And since AA and UA both permit one-way rewards you can mix-and-match for the ORD-MCO trip if you don't have enough in either one program for both directions. And keep in mind that ORD-MCO isn't always the best value for the redemptions. Generally the airfares are quite reasonable on that route.

Welcome to FT, logan115!

That's because they have not yet been granted anti-trust immunity. They are working on it, and I supect it'll go through within the next few months, maybe even around the same time as The Merger.

Thanks all -

I remembered seeing the quirk about no AA credit on the BA transatlantic flights which is a bummer, but I love BA for ORD-LHR. Don't suppose there's a way to claim my miles for a Mar 2010 trip if I don't have the original ticket ? Sorry to go OT - but what are the other recommended airlines for ORD-LHR ?

Back to this trip, I did try to stay within one alliance for all legs, but couldn't get anything other than the AA flight ORD-LAX this Friday and definitely wanted to SQ non-stop based on what some of my colleagues told me.

Don't know much about this stuff (yet), but happy to share my knowledge around timeshares in the Orlando area - specifically on WDW in return.

Thanks again, looking forward to learning more,

Chris

Welcome to FT logan115!

Just stick to your UA account for the SQ flight and you will be fine. And unfortunately you can't combine the two programs. Combining miles is difficult to impossible anyway.

In regards to ORD-LHR, why don't you fly UA? This way you get your UA miles and are one step closer to your goal to get to MCO.

Remember you get no mileage credit on SQ flights in Mileage Plus if your Booking Class is X I O G Q V N T.

Thanks for all the warm greetings - think I'm gonna like it around here (if you'll have me).

I could, and both BA and UA are some of the "preferred" airlines designated by my employer for business travel, and granted I have a small data set (only 4 ORD-LHR flights), but the 3 trips on BA seemed much nicer than the one on either UA or AA (can't remember which one).

Will have to check the booking class when I get into the office tomorrow.

Thanks again,

Chris

The OP is travelling paid business class on SQ so won't be on any of those above booking classes which are all Y cabin except for I = redemption business class and O = redemption First class.

If you prefer BA, then why not sign up for a frequent flier account with them? Then you could credit all of your AA (except U.S.-LHR) to that one in the future. Although I am not very familiar with BA's program, so you will have to study earning and redemption levels compared to AA.

If I were the OP I would fly UA (their new business class is quite nice) until the day AA/IBBA got their antitrust approval so he can start earning miles on his AA account. Otherwise the OP will have too many programs and it just gets too hard. Just my $.02

+1.

OP doesn't indicate any status levels, but I would suggest sticking with one program/alliance when/wherever reasonable in order to achieve status.

Unless s/he truly does not care about that.

There are some suggesting that the approval could come as soon as today. And even with that I'm not sure that FF reciprocity is a sure thing. There have been some suggestions that it won't happen right away.

Thanks for all the input.

Regarding just using my United MP for the SQ flight, if I don't have the actual card, can I just provide my membership # at check-in ?

Thanks again,

Chris

Yes. And keep the boarding passes.