Needing Membership Advice
 

New job as a traveling installation rep. Trying to find out what airline to purchase my club card in and invest in. I travel at least once internationally to the mid-east each year in addition to work schedule.

(1) What is your home airport? ORD
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy/Lowest
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 50-60K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, lounge access/ comfort on international trip
(6) Which routes do you fly most often US Domestic, Mid-east once annually
(7) Preferred Airlines No preference yet
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? For work, can choose airline barring significant rate differences.

One variable is the fair bucket you buy. If you pick United as your FF choice, some fairs on Asiana and Turkish won't accrue any PQM (butt in seat) miles that count toward status. Some fairs will accrue PQM, but with only 50% or even zero award miles (traditional frequent flyer miles used redeemed for tickets/upgrades).

I would say either Asiana or United, with a lean towards United since you have some domestic travel in US plus the European hop. Turkish makes no sense unless you always plan to fly with them and they are not convienent for most European cities from North America. Unless you like to backtrack hundreds or a thousand miles with a connection and extra flight every time you go to Europe. Out of JFK, I would make good use of all of the *A carriers who have non-stops to places you go to. Asiana to Seoul, the half dozen carriers with non-stops to major European hubs like Lufthansa and Swiss. That kind of thing.

Going with Asiana would really depend on their upgrade policies, which I don't know and am too lazy to look up. If you're flying coach in Asiana though, I would go with United as the FF program. You won't loose anything.

With a couple of transcons, a couple of TPACs and a TATL each year, that's around 50,000 butt in seat miles each year. That will get you Gold status, both on United and Star Alliance. You can use the airline clubs on all of the carriers on your international trips, you get the extra baggage allowance, etc.

You have a choice of two - United or American. Check and see which airline has non-stops to places you plan to travel too from Chicago, and which connections from Chicago make your travel easier. As far as the Mideast trip, both Star Alliance and Oneworld give you a lot of options to connect to wherever you're going.

General question: is using *A from the US to India a bit of a tough thing to do? I'm pricing MCI-HYD in J, and I get a ton of Oneworld options, a few ME3 options, one kind of bad and overpriced United option, and not much else.

I was hoping for MCI to a UA hub (or to YYZ) to a European hub to India. Perhaps ticketed on LH or LX for 150-200% earning, tier miles posting to A3. But I can't even get that straightforward route to quote at all in most search engines. I could just as easily fly the other direction, but I don't see any of the TPAC partners with good options either.

I haven't taken the step of piecing together a long multi-segment itin. I have some latitude in how I route, but it has to price competitively (OW and ME3 options are $4k-5k R/T, retail before corp discounts). I'm guessing multi-seg will blow the budget (?).

Is this just a known weak spot? Or is there some trick to finding these routes?

Air India is part of Star Alliance, but you're coming from a small airport with little to no international flights to a destination with few international flights and no. You're looking at at least a couple of stops along the way. MCI-ORD on United, then ORD-HYD on Air India with a connection in Delhi or Mumbai or somewhere. Or through Air Canada.

OneWorld is a better option because British Airways flies non-stop to HYD from Heathrow, as does Cathay Pacific and Qatar. You can make easy 2-hop connections from Kansas City with those choices. With Star, your options are pretty limited and you'll have to fly Air India at some point.

Doesn't HYD have nonstops arriving from most European hubs? I guess I always assumed that was a fairly large airport... No LH, LX, or TK?

From MCI, it's the same on any alliance. Short hop to a US hub, and then onward from there. I expect that no matter which I choose.

Nope. British Airways is the only European airline that flies there. No one even has a tag flight, like a Lufthansa flight the goes FRA-BOM-HYD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_...d_destinations

They do show an Air India non-stop to Chicago, so maybe they operate that seasonally. Use Google flights to search for Star Alliance and with just 1 connection.

At least from the US, the Middle East airlines have gotten a hammerlock on business to India. Lots of capacity, lots of cheap fares, and usually with decent one-stop connections through Dubai or Doha or Abu Dhabi. The problem is, none of those airlines are Star Alliance.

So I guess I should ask: how bad is Air India J? MCI-ORD-DEL-HYD certainly exists (even if I have to price it as ORD-HYD and just tack on a cheap Y flight to Chicago). Looks like it would post 200% tier miles to A3. That's tempting as long as the product isn't terrible. Star Silver in one shot and within striking distance of Star Gold.

The only problem is...the answer I've seen on FT in the past has been... "it's pretty bad."

Hi all,
I am based in LHR and currently a BA Executive Club Silver (expiring in 2019). I think Silver is good for me now in OW (it gives me lounge access in oneworld, priority boarding, and it is not too hard to get when traveling in premium economy), although I may go to Gold if I fly them more.
Because I usually prefer a direct/convenient flight out of LHR, and I use *A sometimes too, I would like to start crediting my *A miles to the best FFP. I am wondering what is the best program for that.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
1. Lounge
2. Priority check-in/bags/boarding/etc
3. Redemption and upgrade

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
On *A, one roundtrip LHR-Europe (LH, LX, LO, OS) in economy every 3 weeks, occasionally transatlantic in premium economy LHR-Houston or Chicago on LH or UA.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Economy in Europe
Premium economy when available

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Airline most flown? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Class is according to the travel policy:
- premium economy when available,
- if no premium economy, economy
- if flights >12hrs, business
I choose the airline and the itinerary (except huge price difference). I travel for work so I choose the schedule too, and sometimes book in full Y fares.

I may favor one airline over another because of the FFP but my main choice criterion is schedule and experience.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
LHR to Europe, and sometimes Middle East in economy
Transatlantic in premium economy

(6) What is your home airport?
LHR.

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in an airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
I am BA Executive Club Silver until 2019. I got it mostly with one business class roundtrip on QR (~300) and several premium economy or economy journeys (90 each)

(8) Preferred Airlines
BA is usually good for transatlantic, not that good for European. For European, I usually choose LH, LX, OS, LO, TP because they have direct flights.


I saw that LH Frequent Traveler is reachable with 30 flights, so about 15 roundtrips in economy. This may be an option for me. However I am not sure LH FT is very good because it does not allow lounge access for other *A carriers, and I may take UA from time to time. My last flights on LO in Europe gave me 1250 and 250 miles, that's 3% of the FT target...
Therefore I am wondering if I have better options for *A.


Thanks!

FTL gives you access to LH group business lounges regardless of the *A carrier you fly, so for LHR, FRA, MUC, VIE, ZRH and a couple of destinations in the US you'd be well served with that. Reaching *G would of course be better, and if you can avoid low fare buckets I think A3 would be your best bet, especially if you're willing to do a couple of mileage runs on A3 metal.

SFO to Sweden ~6x/yr in Biz on SAS metal
 

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) SFO
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Business class
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) ~65K/yr, from traveling SFO-Sweden ~6x/yr on SAS metal. Will likely have some small unknown but not material domestic Y travel
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) None. Existing points balances with UA and AA, but no status currently
(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 when I'm traveling on US domestic economy flights
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) SFO-Sweden on SAS metal
(7) Preferred Airlines SAS internationally, United domestically
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) For work, will generally be SAS in business class

Thank you for your help!

The only way of getting lounge access on US domestic flights is to have a non-UA *G card, so I'd say just go with SK, you'll make 24k points per R/T meaning you'll earn *G within 2 trips (45k is the threshold), and with 4 R/T you'll easily make Diamond (90k) which will allow you to gift a *G card to a friend or family member.

Redeeming on SK will also be cheap, since SK does not charge YQ on its own metal IIRC.

However, he won't get any domestic CPU upgrades or even Economy Plus on UA flights. He could probably use miles for upgrades and buying a subscription for E+.

I am currently Premier 1K with United MileagePlus. I think this is a solid choice, but given we recently rolled into the new year, I'd love some other opinions on whether I should stick with MileagePlus, or switch to another Star Alliance program.

For background, I was previously loyal to Aeroplan, but eventually switched to MileagePlus for two reasons:
1: (main reason) ridiculous (fuel surcharge) fees on award redemptions using Aeroplan (on certain airlines, including Air Canada)
2: (related reason) comparatively low fees when booking the exact same flights using MileagePlus award redemptions (I already had a MileagePlus account from when I previously lived in the US)

I cannot see myself switching back to Aeroplan, so really just wondering if there's a better program within Star Alliance than United MileagePlus for my situation. Details as follows:

(1) What is your home airport? YYZ (Toronto)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? C for business travel (~80%), cheapest Y for pleasure travel (~20%)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? ~75K (excluding class /status bonuses)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? UA MileagePlus Premier 1K
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? In order of importance: best mileage earning rates, good award redemption rates, upgrades on travel, free lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Long-haul international for business, Toronto-SE Asia for personal
(7) Preferred Airlines: Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, Singapore, ANA, United (mostly only due to current status/upgrades)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? 80%/20% work/pleasure. I can choose any airline when traveling for work, within reason.

PS. I already have accumulated 24K PQM with MileagePlus this year, so that should probably influence the decision. That said, I can always use this advice for next year.

Thanks in advance!

This is very helpful, thank you!

Having an easy route to Diamond is great, and being able to gift *G would be awesome.

And while mileage earn/burn isn't my primary objective, it does look much better on SK -- 1 roundtrip flight SFO-ARN in business class:
* SAS Eurobonus: Earn 24,000 points = 0.96 RT Y domestic US tickets (25K points)
* United MP: Earn 16,077 miles = 0.64 RT Y domestic US tickets (25K miles)

Thank you!