thanks, Mwenenzi - I'll give UA a try.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) DXB
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) for *A that would be Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 100k to 150k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) I will soon be OZ*G for life hence looking for another program to achieve the (5)...
(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.)
Most important is earn burn ratio when flying discounted Y, mile expiration is a second concern
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) DXB Europe, DXB SE Asia
(7) Preferred Airlines Any *A but AI !
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) predominantly for my pleasure

Hello, thanks to the recent devaluation of AA's program, and my relocation outside the US I've been debating switching programs and alliances, any advice is much appreciated! :)

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

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Mix of C and Y depending on flight length and cost, I try to fly business on long haul flights.

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
50k+ Some years as much as 100k

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

(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.)
Lounge access, upgrades, awards

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
BKK - US 2+ times per year.
BKK - India 2 times per year
BKK - HKG 2-4 times per year
BKK - Europe 1 time per year
Other asia 4-6 flights per year

(7) Preferred Airlines
Haven't flown enough star alliance flights to be sure. :) Thai is decent and Turkish is hit and miss.

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service?)
Mostly for pleasure, and I can chose my airline and class.

I'll be booking two BKK-US round trips and one BKK-India round trip soon, and I'll be booking one to europe around christmas, so if I'm going to change the time is now. :)

You are kind of limited in what airlines you will fly, since normally deep discount booking classes earn nothing or very little in various FFPs. So you should probably figure out first what airlines you will fly, and then study the earning tables of the FFPs you are interested in. UA and AC are probably your best bet, since they are quite generous in Y.

If you are OK with flying TK, I would ask for a status match to*G (check the TK forum), complete the challenge and then accrue there at least enough to maintain status. Award redemptions with TK are a pain, but considering your priorities reaching *G quickly is more important.

Also I have never flown TG but in Y they appaer to be nothing to write home about.

Thanks! Yeah, TG is nothing special, but they're decent regionally and naturally service a lot of destinations out of my home airport. That said, I much prefer JL and several other airlines Y. I'm okay with flying TK, but I'd rather not fly them very often. I'm curious is there a reason TK would be a better program to join than OZ? (I'd first be flying two rt BKK-JFK in J making reaching *G instantly less important, and from what I can see OZ services that route on an A380 which looks to be a much better hard product then the same TK route)

The requalification threshold for *G on TK is lower, and this would give you more flexibility to then choose OW (and therefore use your AA Plat privileges). They are similar programs in that the *G requalification is low and award tickets are a pain to redeem, so if I were you I'd put there only the minimum amount of miles possible and still fly OW if it's convenient for you.

Excellent, that does sound like a good plan, thanks for the advice malmostoso! :)

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) XRY and MAD
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) depends. When I travel forward the cheapest (Y) when I return with the client business fare (C)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) with StarAlliance 25-50k

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? I am Ruby with OneWorld. With StarAlliance I have avianca and have 19000 points, I have yet to get to the next tier.


(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.) To keep the miles (long time for redempting them, and fast upgrades).
An easy way to redeeem miles and an easy way to contact them to claim my miles (since most of the times I have to claim them afterwards). Earn cheap flights to enjoy (when I travel for pleasure the cheaper the better)

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) Completely random. To North and South America, to Asia...mainly long flights doing layoffs in Europe.
(7) Preferred Airlines Any From this program Lufthansa is good and near Spain. Singapore is really good and Thai is excellence
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) predominantly for work (90% of times). My company pays for the tickets


Important note: Before I knew this forum I enrolled on Avianca. But its market is South America and the whole site is ....:
- I can't redeem miles into products since I live in Spain.
- No clear information of the routes they offer and what I can do with my miles.
- Every time I want to claim lost miles I have to contact the call center since you can't do it online (I don't know if they have an email for this purpose). And the telephone service is really bad (20 minutes each time I want to claim points and 1 or 2 weeks for them to contact the other company...).

I am not happy with Avianca at all. I have thought about waiting to get the upgrade (I have more than 19000 points and I only have to get 22000) and then use the points in some flight.
Another reason is that I never know in which company my boss is going to book the flight and 1 of their conditions to get to the next tier is to flight more than 10000 miles (I will never know if I will fly with them again or not)...

So bad decision to enroll with this company.

Asking for recommendation getting started
 

I'll be traveling 25% of the time for work (about a week per month). New to business travel seeking suggestions.

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

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Economy/Coach/cheapest (per company requirement)

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

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

(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 good award redemption rates

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

(7) Preferred Airlines
Looking for suggestions!

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

Thanks!

If you have no flexibility in choosing your fares or airlines, just stick to the airline that you fly the most. In the US this clearly limits you to UA for *A.

Write off those AV miles and move on.

If you enjoy flying LH and you only fly cheap economy out of Europe, then M&M could not be a horrendous idea.

Booking online award flights works well and you can retroclaim easily. However, redeeming award flights comes with high taxes. Also miles expire after 3 years, however since you are based in XRY maybe you have the opportunity to request the M&M credit card in Portugal? That should keep your miles from expiring (read the T&Cs though!).

With M&M you will always get reasonable earning in C, so whichever airline you fly on your return trips you should be sorted.

Finally, even if you only manage FTL status with LH (30 segments or 35k miles) you will still be able to enjoy Business lounge access in LH Group lounges, which means no access in MAD or XRY but definitely in FRA or MUC (or BRU or VIE or...)

I'm thinking United on Star Alliance based on the airlines, too. Plus Marriott hotels is allied with them and there are plenty of those!

What about American Air on One World? Looking at the flight maps they serve more airports than United, and I can leave out of LGA instead of EWR or JFK.

Thanks!

Expecting to be on the road lot more
 

I recently got a promotion and expect to be traveling a lot more in the coming year. I'd like some help trying to figure out what airline to fly and what ffp to join to get the most bang for the buck with regards to status and miles.

(1) What is your home airport? San Diego

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) What ever our travel agency, egencia, books. I really don't know.


(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Currently not many but this is what I've been told to expect moving forward.

SAN - BOS: 3 times per year

SAN - BOS: train to NYC then NYC to SAN: 2 times per year

SAN - NYC: 1 - 2 times per year

SAN - SJC: 3 times per year

SAN - SFO: 2 times per year

SAN - AMS 1 time per year

SAN - SEA 1 time per year

I will likely have 1 additional international trip to either Tokyo, London or Paris


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

The most important feature is upgrades but only when that is my only option for getting extra leg space, I am 6'6. For example I know some airlines require you to have status to get the exit rows. If I pick an airline where that is the case then status is my top priority. However we are allowed to purchase extra leg room if that doesn't mean purchasing premium economy. for example I can buy an exit row on Jet Blue or American without a problem.


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

See above.


(7) Preferred Airlines

Right now I typically fly jet blue because I can buy exit rows and go direct from SD to BOS and NYC. That said I am not happy with their rewards program.


(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Most of the travel above is for work.

Domestic: Economy but can buy seats with more leg room.
International: Premium Economy


(9) Other: While my home base is San Diego, I'd consider flying from LAX for trips to NYC, BOS and International

(10) What options have I looked at:

1. Flying Delta and banking points with SkyMiles. I'd use Alaska for my San - SJC flights.

2. Flying Delta / Alaska and Banking points with Alaska (my concern here is getting exit rows)

3. flying Jet Blue, that it does nothing to help me on international flights and their rewards routes don't really take me anywhere I want to go.

Thanks for the help

Hello all,

New to here, just trying to get some advice from you experts! :) I lately have a hard time to choose among UA/OZ/A3 to go with since my major concern is redeemable miles and status (gold) for *A. Currently based in PHL/EWR but really jumping between HKG/TPE and New York metro area (PHL/EWR/JFK)

(1) What is your home airport? PHL/EWR/JFK for the next two years. I travel between n.america to asia primarily (hong kong taiwan)

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? discounted business or economy

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 30k-60k

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? AA gold and UA silver

(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? I primarily would look for good award redemption rates (specific for F) and status (gold)

(6) Which routes do you fly most often? For US domestic, I usually fly J, and 2 months between North America-Europe and 2 major trips NYC-HKG/TPE annually

(7) Preferred Airlines: For *A, i really enjoy OZ, but am excited to try ANA product soon...if needed I would go for BR

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? both almost 50% 50%

After some research, I still not sure which program to choose....Thanks a bunch in advance!

wcc