Need advice on which *A FF scheme to join? - please post here

Non-US residents of UA FFP don't have the PQD requirement

Yes that's what I read but it's been weeks and weeks and they haven't approved my address change. I've emailed their CS separately too but still no response so I basically have given up.

If I am able to get that PQD waiver would continuing to accrue on UA be optimal? I would qualify for silver now and reach gold soon.

Ok, managed to change my address so the PQD requirement is waived but I probably still wouldn't meet the 4 segment requirement.

Any thoughts on which program to accrue to?

Thanks

(1) What is your home airport?
LHR (Other london airports are a bit more of a hassle, but still doable)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Cheapest. I only pay more when it makes sense for status.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year?
I estimate 30 returns in europe (but 25 have to credited to BA at the moment to renew silver every year, and I assume there will be a few short haul flights that are more convenient on *A)
And add to that 3-4 long haul return flights (30-40k actual miles)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it?
Will qualify for BA Silver this year (status match to UA would be available, then, at least for a first year)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP?
In order of importance:
- Priority check-in/security/immigration/boarding (Less time standing up, more time in the lounge)
- Lounge access (But I can also get that with priority pass, so lounge quality / availability also matters)
- Better mileage accrual (I wouldn't mind getting closer to my redemption quicker, but this doesn't matter as much as the rest)
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
- Anywhere in Europe, but in Switzerland more often than other countries.
- Long haul: in order of frequency: YUL > TYO > LAS > Others.
(7) Preferred Airlines
I don't fly Swiss anymore, now that they are building midget-size seats into Economy. I'm 6'5, so I'll fly any airline with legroom.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
Leisure only.

I plan on flying 2-3 long-haul segments per year on Star Alliance as it seems cheaper than OneWorld for the routes I want to do (London to Montral / Tokyo / Las Vegas)

Besides, crediting the same routes to BA's loyalty programme won't make any noticeable change to my status or lifetime tier points.

Am I right in thinking that I'd get 50-100% of the actual flight length in qualifying miles? If so, I'd probably credit those to Asiana, as progressing towards lifetime status sounds nice to me. Any other program that I should consider in that case?

Hello Everybody


Looking for some advice please for which horse I hitch a ride on......


(1) What is your home airport? MAN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Can be any.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 25k-50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? FB Platinum
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Priority Boarding & Lounge Access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (UK-EU & UK-ME)
(7) Preferred Airlines Skyteam, as I'm FB Plat
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work, can choose airlines - Economy for UK-EU, Bus for UK-ME


New job takes me across EU (Economy) & ME(Business) and twice yearly to US (Prem Economy). So far this year I have got FBPlat (from scratch) added with the odd *A flight here and there (as well asQatar before the blockade).


Now it�s likely I will have to use more *A flights next year as some of mydestinations are not serviced by Skyteam easily, so I need to select which *AFF will get me the benefits the quickest. I'm MAN based, so for the EU flightsits either LH or Brussels, but they are going to be low miles, but higherflight #'s. Throwing Turkish into the mix, as a few of the ME destinations havebest routes through IST (and I can status match with my current FB Plat status - I think?)


Thanks for your help......

Given what you've said, TK looks like the best option, especially if you can status match to Elite Plus. I'd avoid LH because they're so mean with the mileage (and in the EU your eco flights could often get you as little as 125 miles a segment). Another option would be SAS - with accrual into A3 (Aegean) you'd get 100-200% miles. That depends on which cities you're getting to from MAN though. MAN-CPH-WAW is fine but if you need to get to cities in Southern Europe it's not as convenient to go via an SK hub.

Guess I'll try my luck too...

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)
TXL (Berlin, Germany) and IAD (Washington, DC, USA).
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Cheap Eco (K, L, S and so on).
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Don't really know, as it's about to change. Will probably be between 35-55k or so.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, 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.)
Good award pricing, not so much the black out dates as I'm quite flexible. Lounge access, waitlist priority and those status perks would be nice too, but let's see.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
Mostly between IAD-TXL, sometimes intra-EU, intra-US or South America.

(7) Preferred Airlines
Don't really have preferences, untill now i've mostly flown with LH, SN,
UA. But I'm not a conservative
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
I travel privately, so basically I can choose.

I hope someone's got advice for me. Thanks, dear oracles!

Hi all,

Some advice sought! Currently Sapphire OW through BA (BA/AA were my carriers of choice) but due to scheduling changes most of my upcoming longhaul travel will be with *A (3-4 Europe - US trips in the next 3-4 months), all LH/LX/UA business class. I have no upcoming longhaul trips planned on Oneworld so likely to lose my BA status in about 6 months time.

I am also Silver/FTL on M&M, but my collection year runs out before I get to Senator as still need another 60k before end of 2017 and I won't fly enough before then to do that (and so i'll lose the 40k status miles collected on the way from FTL to SEN).

Until very recently I didn't know that different *A programs had lower gold requirements than M&M and it seems if I go with something like Turkish, Asiana or Aegean (or similar) I would get to Gold very quickly with my upcoming travel and thus thinking of changing from M&M...any advice?

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)
BSL or ZUR. Usually flying to SFO when transatlantic

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Usually P or Z (C) when long haul. Short haul in Europe is a mix of economy fares (and every airline)

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

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc)
BA Silver (OW Sapphire), M&M/LH Freq Traveller (*A Silver)

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

Highest: Priority at airport and lounge access

Medium: Miles that don't expire/not too quickly (I used to always losing my M&M miles by not using them, although now they don't expire as FTL). I'd also like to start using miles for award flights and/or upgrades for personal trips

Lowest: Some kind of family account?

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
Europe - US 3-6 times a year. About 10 shorthaul around Europe

(7) Preferred Airlines
Used to mainly fly BA/American long haul (hence Oneworld status), but they recently changed schedules so almost all upcoming travel for foreseeable future is LH or LX (with occasional UA).

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
Mostly work (longhaul business, shorthaul economy). When going for personal usually choose cheapest options, although we would like to use miles/awards more often.

Thanks for your help!

With your travel patterns it shouldn't be that hard to earn *G in the alternative programs you've mentioned (A3, OZ, TK). A3 is the easiest for keeping *G once you have it, especially if you can do four segments on their domestic airlines.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you ever want to try booking an F flight in LH/LX then that will be a lot easier if you're booking from their scheme than a partner.

OZ gives the possibility of Lifetime Diamond if you can maintain *G for long enough. A3 has the Together account if you have family members also taking trips.

The LH program is notorious for hard expiry of miles but you can prevent this by having any kind of FF status (e.g FTL). So being at least FTL shouldn't be a problem for you but LH are so damn mean with their miles and it's stupidly hard to get *G in their scheme. It only really makes sense if you have a reasonable shot at getting/keeping SEN and the great majority of your flights will be on LH group airlines.

So i've just seen that P fares don't get any miles on A3, OZ or TK! And 3 of my next 4 trips are on P (I don't get a choice - my company books for me).

If i'm stuck with P, what should I go for then? Does UA make the most sense? Or SAS? I'm a bit confused by the SAS program and the actual number of points i'll get...

(1) What is your home airport?
Tallinn - TLL

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Mainly flying in Economy Discounted - V between TLL-WAW with LOT

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year?
Approx 25K per year

(4) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Lounge access

More information: I'm already Gold with SAS, but because I don't often fly with SAS I won't be able to extend my status.
TK has granted me a challenge which I have fullfilled and I will have my G status until Nov18.
I fly pretty much every week between TLL and WAW and ca. 3-5 times a year to Athens.

Question: does it make sence to start collecting points in Aegean programme to become G with them or I shall continue with TK programme?

Thanks for your help

The 'P' fares are notorious on LH and a lot of people get caught out by them. If you have this class then good options include (apart from LH itself) UA, SQ (SIA) and SK (SAS).

You can see your options here: http://www.wheretocredit.com/english/lufthansa/p

I can't really comment on TK but given that you already fly several times a year to ATH then A3 (Aegean) looks a logical choice and it is the easiest to retain *G. For qualification, you should think about going back to SAS to take a few trips if possible (very good mileage accrual to A3).

1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) - LWO
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) - discounted economy most of the time
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) - 25-50K actual miles
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) - M&M Frequent Flyer (*A Silver) with 88K award miles accumulated . Status will expire in two months (changed my job in the end of last year and hadn't traveled a lot for the first 6-8 months in the new company). I am trying to decide if I want to stay with them. As an owner of MasterCard Platinum I also have free access to the lounge in KBP (PS hub).
(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.) - award redemption rates, lounge access, upgrades
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) - 2-3 business trips to the US a year (usually LH + UA) along with 2-3 trips around Europe (LO, OS, sometimes PS or W6). 2-4 leisure trips (usually low costs W6, FR, EG, sometimes PS).
(7) Preferred Airlines - trying to avoid PS for business trips, but not really religious about it (except for transatlantic, where PS is a big no-no for me)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) - mostly for work, have limited influence over the decision (e.g. if the price and time is similar I can choose between airlines)

Right - any expert help would be really appreciated.

I joined Aegean due to great *G threshold (when I still flew less) and decent redemption on *A ex South Africa. Due to my most frequent flights being on SA in discounted economy (TLVW) and Aegean earning only 50% for those buckets, I am wondering if there is a more efficient option. My main consideration is Krisflyer due to 100% earn, but redemptions are hard to puzzle out and have heard some annoying things about award availability. (I do have a CPT - SIN - BKK - CPT in C booked on them so at least that would also be a start to re-earning gold again.)

Question is - do I stick with Miles + Bonus (only have about 24k miles balance now) or should I jump ship somewhere else?

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) CPT
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) C internationally, Y locally (at least 2k miles per week, all SA, mostly TLVW buckets). (F on miles ;-) )
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 120k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) EK Silver, A3 Gold
(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.) Miles earning/redemption and the normal *A perks
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) South Africa -> Asia/Europe, and domestic CPT-JNB shuttle
(7) Preferred Airlines SQ, TG, (EK), (CX). SA domestic
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Both.