(1) What is your home airport? LHR - 75%, AMS - 25%
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Economy, discounted economy, seldom economy-priced deal for business ALWAYS FARES SO I GET 100% MILES HALF AND HALF business and economy class with standby upgrades to business (paid for)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 70-100k in actual miles, >50 segments, earn >40k TK miles/year I FLY 60-100K EACH YEAR
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? ROP PLATINUM
(5) What is most important to you FREE UPGRADES
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? LONDON TO BKK (RETURN)
(7) Preferred Airlines? TK, WAS THAI BUT I LIKE EVA AIR NOW.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? I COMBINE BOTH !

I spend an absolute fortune mainly with Thai airways as once upon a time they were a good airline !
Having been a gold member and reaching platinum membership I expected to be looked after as a valid loyal customer, I have 190.000 airmiles from this year and I have NEVER once had a free upgrade in 10 years of gold / platinum , the only privileges that I have earnt were through loyalty,
I’m very disillusioned with Thai airways and am now looking for an alternative airline that values their customers

any advise would be great
cheers

andtapple Welcome to FT

If free upgrades are the main objective from a ffp, I suspect you will continue to be disappointed with most airlines. For upgrades with airlines based out of the USA always expect to fly in the class you buy. It is only USA based airlines that give out upgrades like confetti for free (by status or upgrade instruments). Many USA and some non USA airlines have upgrades with miles and or miles & cash co pay on eligible fares. But far less with non USA airlines. However as above CX is noted as giving some operational upgrades to its top tier frequent flyers.

Similarly earning 100% base miles on discounted economy fares is getting less and less. Full economy (Y B) can be more expensive than discounted business.

And also look at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

The grass in not always greener on the other side

thanks for the advise , much appreciated

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)

NYC

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)

C - Economy.

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)

Nearly always less than 25K.

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)

None.

(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.)

All! But here is the prioritized list from most important, to least:
-good award redemption rates
-frequent upgrades on travel
-free lounge access
-priority services when flying the airline.

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)

Transatlantic (London, Germany) and within Europe (also, London and Germany, but add Spain). NYC to South America (Chile, Peru, Argentina). And a little bit within the United States.

(7) Preferred Airlines

Whatever is cheapest.

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)

Pleasure. I can choose my airlines and class of service.

I did use use U.S. Airways for the Star Alliance, but once they merged with American my mileage (which wasn't much anyway) went over there. I like to avoid fees associated with mileage programs: fees for maintaining my miles, and fees for credit cards (which I am willing to get). I don't travel all that often and would welcome something that was "set it and forget it."

I saw the first post in this thread and wonder if the less than 50K Aegean Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and Asiana Airlines rule still holds true? And if so, which of those three might be best for me?

Any guidance appreciated.

Many thanks.

Would appreciate advice on which airline's star alliance program to join:

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) : LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Fly J for work (approx 20 - 50k per year miles on Star alliance) and Fly Y for personal travel
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) BA Gold, none on Star Alliance
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.): Upgrades using miles and good redemption, especially on Air India or other airlines flying into India
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) : For redemption on LHR - BOM/DEL
(7) Preferred Airlines: Air India, Singapore
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?): Both - I can choose airline freely for both

Many thanks for your advice and insights folks!

A newbie flyer wanting to step up
 

Am planning a round the world trip this year and would appreciate some help in finding out what's the best FFP to join.

(1) What is your home airport? AKL
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y, maybe W
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? This year, ~30K. Hopefully more from next year onwards.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.) Upgrades and lounge access first, priority second. Not fussed about redeeming rewards.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) Transpacific, mostly. Living in NZ helps with that ;)
(7) Preferred Airlines Air NZ
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Pleasure

I think living in NZ you are pretty much stuck with Airpoints. Most if not all cheap economy fares on NZ do not earn anything in the "easy" programs (OZ, TK, A3), and at the end of the day when you consider you can earn status points through credit card spending it is not impossible to achieve gold status.

You should carefully check the NZ board on FT and try simulating how many status points you would receive for your RTW trip. With the RTW trip you could conceivably obtain gold status with OZ (40k miles) if you choose your booking classes wisely, but maintaining it might be very tricky if you only fly economy in/on NZ.

Thanks for the response! Will head that way and brush up on booking classes too.

With low cost fares your chances of earning status is not good. Your chances of upgrades is 1% at best. Need to be realistic.

If flying RTW if properly constructed few flights will be on Air NZ. From a freq flyer miles perspective the less NZ flights the better. ANZ Airpoints is a very poor fp, unless flying Air NZ a lot, including NZ domestic flights
Far better to join another Star ffp (not Air NZ). But check the booking class

You do not say how the RTW will be done: segment by segment or a structured alliance RTW? OneWorld also has RTW products. In my view the OW *ONE* 16 segment is better than the distance based offered by Star & OW.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...t-faqs-33.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

Fair enough. I know it's a tall order to get any perks flying just economy. :)

The RTW is probably not a true RTW because it will be done per segment, using different airlines I found through ITA Matrix, Momondo and Rome2Rio. I'm not totally clear if that's considered an RTW or not.

I would like, however, to benefit from this trip as much as possible if I can build up anything to help for next year's travels. I'm not too fussed about being on NZ Airpoints because I'm also unsure how long I'll stay here.

Thanks for any advice - just running out of patience with United after being hit hard this year with changes in eligibility rules: status down from Platinum to Silver as significant flights on partners weren't counted.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Varies - last year included Q, V, T, K
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) >50K (often 100K+)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) UA Silver about to start - UA Platinum running out this month
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.) Upgrades would be nice - but probably not realistic flying economy; Lounges vital; Priority useful too
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) Intercontinental - last year included UK-USA/Addis Ababa/Australia/Singapore/Johannesburg
(7) Preferred Airlines: Turkish works quite well now they've improved security at Istanbul, but planes themselves not always great. Quite liked United for the Economy Plus seats with power, but service with them really dropped last year.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Work - but always focused on cheapest (or close to it) fares

Thanks for your help.

Which scheme is right for me? and what about AMEX?
 

Home airports: Newark or JFK
type of travel biz or first for pleasure, econ for work
how many miles per year? 25,000 or so
what's important: upgrades/points redemption
frequently used airlines: United/Jet Blue
I'm already a United Mileage Plus member with 18,000 miles last year; I bought more points to get to a total of 41,000.

I go from NY to CA twice a year on Jet Blue. I travel international at least once a year on United and two or three times a year domestically. When my company books a flight, they buy economy.

I try to buy all tickets on AMEX. Should I cluster all my points rewards on Amex or try to use United too?

thanks

I've been with M&M till now but not really happy with their tax policies (EDIT: should be "surcharge policies"). Makes the awards too expensive. So I'm looking for a better option.

(1) What is your home airport? Currently UIO but could change within this or next year, possibly to HKG
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Usually cheapest
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Somewhere between 8k-20k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.) Good award redemption rates & options (mainly flights)
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) To ZRH more than others but also a lot of random short trips (South America, Asia).
(7) Preferred Airlines Non in particular...though I try to stay away from American ones.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Leisure I guess (I'm a digital nomad, can always choose airlines/class of service)

Real taxes are 100% the same for all passengers flying the same route & class of travel on all airlines
Are you confusing real taxes and carrier imposed surcharges on awards? Some surcharges can trigger real taxes

USA based airline ffp's tend to be more generous (status benefits/earn/burn/upgrades/award cost/award cash surcharges/expiry) compared to non USA based airline ffp’s (even after the recently announced changes to some USA ffp’s)

The airline you fly most or an airline of the country you live is the best ffp for many people.
The airline you fly and the airline ffp you credit those flights to does not need to be the same.
Freq flyer miles are not equal to earn or burn.

The grass in not always greener on the other side

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

Mwenenzi, thank you for your reply!

Sorry, I meant surcharges, not taxes.

Generally, how do they compare to Avianca (heard they have the best miles per benefit ratio?) or Asiana (10 year expiry??).

The thing is, I fly a different one almost every time...