(1) What is your home airport?

ZRH/MUC

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ?

As cheap as possible. Always economy, often mistake fares.

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year?

Average 30k - likely to increase due to recent semi-retirement.

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it?

None.

(5) What is most important to you in a FFP?

Low/no surcharges on award tickets.
Long/no expiry period.
Cheap Y-class redemptions.

(6) Which routes do you fly most often

Anything and everything. Average 4 long-haul sectors a year.

(7) Preferred Airlines

Doesn't matter.

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure?

Purely pleasure and all self-paid.

So, I am looking for a *A programme with long expiry periods (which can be extended with activity), low/no YQ on awards, and reasonable redemption rates.
I am not interested in status, or premium class travel.
I currently have an SK Eurobonus account, with a negligable balance, and a Miles & More account, that I stopped using years ago.

Which *A to use.
 

(1) What is your home airport? JFK
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Either F whenever available or C. I DO NOT TRAVEL IN THE U.S.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Over 200,000 seat miles.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BA Premier, AF Platinum
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Award redemption
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Trans Atlantic- only BA- Intra Europe- Europe to Asia- Intra Asia
(7) Preferred Airlines BA, SQ, CX
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work and I choose.

My problem is this. I use my UA number but I don't fly any segments on UA so I don't get status. I fly within Europe, Swiss, LH, OS and Asia, SQ, TG and CX. The question is which FF number should I use on *A?

UA gives you 18 months between activity to keep your miles alive, and you get low or zero YQ on UA metal (and AC IIRC). Both SK and LH are a no go, and since you want to redeem economy you really need no taxes.

The problem with taxes is that you really need to fly UA, which might not be great most of the time.

Arguably if you fly F or C all the time you don't really need status :)

In order to redeem SQ F you have to use Krisflyer, so I would look there. SQ miles do expire, so factor that in your decision.

Thanks for this. The taxes are the key. It looks like UA is likely to be the answer.
I am Europe-based, but end up in the States every year or two, so the odd free sector on UA will be fine.

(1) What is your home airport? AKL
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Ecconomy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 25-50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? No.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? New Zealand domestic, From New Zealand to Asia and Europe
(7) Preferred Airlines? No preference.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure internationally, work within New Zealand.

aklj Welcome to FT

Some fares only earn on Air NZ ffp. Many to most low cost Air NZ fares earn nil or very little on most/all other Star ffp's Some credit to the Virgin Australia ffp
The Air NZ is one of the poorest ffp's in existence, but if fly Air NZ you have no other effective choice.
Lounge access only come with status (or pay $$), and you will not get that unless you fly Air NZ a lot and on long haul more expensive fares.

New Zealand is not a good country for frequent flyers: the poor AirNZ ffp and few other airlines.

Prefer not to fly Air NZ outside of New Zealand, but they are the only option for domestic lounges. Intend on flying to Europe twice this year. Should I join Air NZ ffp or do you have another suggestion?

What about Aegean, if you're after status? Mwenenzi, any thoughts? Would Aegean suit me too? What are their fees and taxes like on redemptions?

You don't fly enough for status. If you have to fly for work see if you can convince your employer to fork at least part of a Koru membership.

Flying to Europe twice in a year will bank you about 48k miles butt-in-seat. This would be enough to reach *G on OZ, ONLY if you book your tickets in a booking class that will earn full miles. Do check that BEFORE you buy your tickets, feel free to post here if you need help.

I got a FF number for Turkish last month and have used it for several segments on AC. Will use on UA this upcoming. On the AC boarding pass, for status says TK*. Does this mean other than that I am using at TK FF number?

Yes, this means you're using a TK FF number. If you have any alliance status on that account, it should say TK*S or TK*G.

What Star Airline to join
 

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) SYD
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Y - discount economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 20,000 miles or 32,000km
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) No
(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.) Free lounge
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) - Europe
(7) Preferred Airlines - don't have one
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) pleasure

Currently booked with Austrian Airlines ( K class), Swiss (S class) and one Qantas sector ( Q class) to Split from Sydney return. There are 5 of us family members travelling. Can we pull status as one? What airline program should we join to get the most benefit? Currently have priority pass lounge access for two but would prefer better lounges if possible.

Already a member of QF program but have no status just lots of points.

Moving from OneWorld(BA)
 

Hi,
I have BA Silver (ie OneWorld Sapphire). However Star Alliance flies more from where I am (TLV), mostly Turkish and Lufthansa. I heard that some airlines match FF status from other airlines, would it be possible to match my BA status in Turkish or LH, and how is it done? Also, what would be the best program?

(1) What is your home airport? TLV
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 20-30k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BA Silver (OneWorld Sapphire)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Nothing specific. LH & TK have lots of connections from TLV.
(7) Preferred Airlines? No preference.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

Bottom-of-the-barrel booking classes unfortunately. K on OS would pay some miles only on AC, UA, and LH, S on LX would be a little more flexible. Try this website to see what's available.

No. There are a couple of programs (TK and A3 come to mind) where you could pool your award miles together in a family account so that you could redeem them, but there's no way to do that with status miles.

I don't think you can do much, hopefully someone with a better idea will post. I'd write the miles off and just focus on having a good holiday with the family :)