(1) What is your home airport? HKG
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? cheapest J for long haul, cheapest Y for short haul (alliance independent, some leeway base on schedule)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? ~50K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Priority service and lounge access during regional flight
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) - Asia / Middle East / Africa - NO Trans-Pacific
(7) Preferred Airlines - None - may the cheapest prevail
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service?) Work, no choice of airline, travel class fixed per company policy

Hi everyone! A friend recommended this website to me, and I've just been downgraded from EB*S so thought I might look around for a new program.

(1) What is your home airport? London/Basel/FRA/ARN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Economy/SAS youth
(3 + 6) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Varies greatly, also no idea in miles. Australia return every second year (sometimes business), US every second year, European flights to Venice and other destinations roughly every month or second month
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? Just lost Eurobonus Silver, so Eurobonus basic (25k points), as well as Thai royal orchid basic.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access (such as Eurobonus silver Saturday and summer/christmas access), extra bag, included train connections.
(7) Preferred Airlines - SAS, Lufthansa, Air Dolomiti, Easyjet
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service?) Pleasure, still student.

(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? >50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Miles & More member (13k)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Priority services, free lounge access, having the points stick.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? EMEA.
(7) Preferred Airlines? None. Whichever gets me to my destination from TLV (or from abroad), non-stop, economy, for an average price.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work. I can choose my airlines, as long as it's not way too expensive than the rest of the flight options.

Thanks.

Hi all-

Looking for some advice on which program to join. Here's my details:

(1) What is your home airport? GVA
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy for flights less than 9 hours, otherwise Business - usually cheapest fares available in those classes (as required by my employer)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Unsure, but probably at least 25k-50k (just started a new role)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None at the moment.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? decent awards for my family, priority servicecs
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: GVA to various countries, using in the developing world
(7) Preferred Airlines: Swiss is prevalent here in Geneva, but not too often.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work and some pleasure. For redemption, will be looking to go to US from GVA most office.


Thanks in advance for your help. I just started a new role with significant travel. When I used to travel frequently before, I was based in the US - so not sure where to start now that I'm in Europe.

(1) What is your home airport? LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? J
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Usually flying 1/2 business class return between South America & India per month.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Silver BA
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Free lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: London -> Bogota, London -> India, London -> NYC
(7) Preferred Airlines With my flight travel it usually means flying Avianca or else Air India. I also fly a lot with BA (hence BA silver status)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work for business class and then economy or redemption flights for pleasure.

I'm flying a lot between Indian and Colombia and sporadically to other destination. In the past I'm tried to fly One World (currently silver) as much as possible but this isn't always possible as there isn't direct flights from London for Colombia. Am I best to credit flights to Avianca or another airline? At the moment I've credited some Avianca to Miles & More and Jet flights to Virgin but would it make more sense to credit both to Turkish? I can't see to find out if I need to fly any segments on Turkish to qualify.

Turkish sounds like the one to go for.
www.wheretocredit.com shows you what miles you will get from flying on AV TK and other star alliance.Also for you to quickly obtain TK gold is feasible with those long haul TK flights in J.

I asked the forums advice earlier in the year. As a result, I joined Asiana. Currently, I have 13k miles in Asiana miles.

My situation has changed. Instead of the cheapest economy fares, I will be booking business class tickets and/or business award tickets. I expect this will last 3 maybe 4 years. After that I will probably return to flying economy.

I will be watching the premium deal thread for flights from the USA to anywhere in SE Asia. This may result in my flying other alliances.

Since I will be flying business, I will have airline lounge access as well as priority pass lounge access. I am most interested in USA - Asia business awards bought with the fewest miles and availability of those awards. ( Booking awards for 2 people)
I have significant amount of United miles. In addition, I have BA miles, Delta miles and Starwood points.

Normally, I will be traveling on 2 trips, possibly 3 trips from:

FLL to Cebu/Manila/Bangkok/Singapore
ORD to Cebu/Manila/Bangkok/Singapore

This year I will probably only be making one trip.

1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.): FLL or ORD


(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.): I will be booking cheap business class fares.


(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? : 35-55k


(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None (Working toward *gold with Asiana 13k)


(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? : Decent award availability and pricing of USA to Asia busines awards.


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

FLL/ORD to SE Asia.

FLL/ORD-BKK/CEB/HKG/MNL/SIN/TPE in business (2+ per year). I am willing to fly to the west coast for a good business fare.

My final destination is Manila or Cebu. I can get to MNL/CEB relatively cheaply from other SE Asia cities.

I will also travel within SE Asia.


(7) Preferred Airlines: ANA, Asiana, EVA, Singapore and Thai. (Alphabetical order)


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

Hi, I live in the UK and have been a member of M+M for a number of years. However, with their programme having gone revenue based, and the loss of the UK credit card to prevent miles expiring, I'm thinking it's time to burn the earned miles and 'jump ship' to a new loyalty programme. I've been particularly hurt by the devaluation of flying premium economy to Hong Kong on LH, I fly this every 18 months or so, and have gone from earning 13,500 miles for it, to about 3200.

(1) What is your home airport? MAN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Discount economy,especially intra-Europe although I've started buying N when flying long-haul to relatives in Hong Kong every 18 months
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Return trip to HKG every 18 months, one intra-Europe flight per year - no more than 15,000 miles.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? No
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Ability to earn miles which don't expire on a distance-based mileage chart, and have access to reasonably priced redemptions in J
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: MAN-HKG, MAN-ZRH
(7) Preferred Airlines: LH, LX, OS, but open to most *A carriers who fly to HKG
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

I feel your pain. LH's recent changes have killed M&M as a feasible proposition for many others, I'm sure.

With your travel patterns I'd recommend SK or A3. If HKG is your main long-haul trip then I'd recommend flying SK and then crediting either to their Eurobonus scheme or to A3's Miles & Bonus. SK are switching their HKG route from ARN to CPH, and that should be more convenient for you if you're coming from MAN. They also have the advantage of offering very good deals in PE classes for HKG flights (hopefully it will still be similar when they switch to CPH). If you credit to A3 you even get 200% on SK PE flights.

Even though you prefer LH, etc., from a mileage perspective I don't think it makes sense to fly them on that route anymore, given what you've already discovered about their paltry miles and the lack of earnings from PE. It's not like M&M has a surfeit of other benefits to attract people. For us based in CEE, it's hard to avoid their tractor beam pull (and Lufty knows this very well) but I find very little in it for UK-based flyers.

(1) What is your home airport? LGW/LCY/LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Discount economy, occasionally transatlantic discount PE
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 1-2 trips to USA every year, with occasional US domestic flight, 3-4 Europe flights
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? No
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Ability to earn miles which don't expire and the ability to save up for a transatlantic J award
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: LHR-BOS,
(7) Preferred Airlines: VS
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

I don't see any recent answers to many of the questions, but nothing to lose so I will give it a try:

(1) What is your home airport? TPE/TSA
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Discount economy, economy, business for trans-Pacific
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? >50K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Yes, *S via Marriott Platinum, was *G for a year with another job. Delta Platinum Medallion = SkyTeam Elite+, which I barely kept last year and hope to keep this year again.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Priority check-in and lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: TPE-CNX 8-12 times/year, TSA-SHA or TPE-PVG 12 times/year, TPE-LAX 1-2 times/year in business
(7) Preferred Airlines: For this question it would be BR, TG, and UA
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Both

I have kept SkyTeam Elite+ for 4 years now, but my second home is served by TG and BR from Taipei. BR just started a non-stop service to CNX so it has become more of a priority to get back to *G, if possible. I have been using my UA number for TG flights, but it does not get me anything at *S. Wondering if it is easier to reach *G with BR or TG based on my travel patterns. Difficult to switch the SHA-TSA flights to * because the CI/MU alliance has much better availability and pricing than BR.

Based in ZRH which *A FF scheme
 

Wanted to ask your advice on which scheme to join from my current M&M, where I'm having difficulty maintaining *G due to change in the job, where no business class. Need about 60k status miles to do so by year end.

(1) What is your home airport? - ZRH
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? - mainly economy / occasionally premium economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? >50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? M&M Senator till year-end 2018
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? free lounge access
(6) Which routes do you fly most often - mainly European short-haul, occasionally Europe-US, Europe-Central Asia, Europe-Africa
(7) Preferred Airlines - mostly flying Swiss, Lufthansa and Turkish
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? - mainly for work, but no business class

Decisions...
 

Hi all, been a long time reader but first time posting. I live in the UAE and have been a loyal Etihad guest member up until now and with the recent news I think it might be time to start looking elsewhere. Unfortunately it's hard to get a credit card for anything other than EK/EY unless you use a generic such as American express or citi bank which won't give status points.
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(1) What is your home airport? - DXB/AUH but also happy to fly out of neighbouring countries for the right fares. CMB, DEL, CAI etc
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? - economy for shorthaul business for longhaul.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 50k+
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? Etihad platinum
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Mileage redemption and lounges
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Middle East to Australia/NZ annually + 5 or so holidays a year mix of medium and long haul
(7) Preferred Airlines - My experience on carriers other than the ME3 is almost 0.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? - all for pleasure

Caesium Welcome to FT
You have posted in the Star Alliance forum, but Etihad EY is ff partner of AA. AA is in the Oneworld alliance as is Qatar QR, BA, Cathay Pacific CX, SriLankan UL (CMB) & others. AA does not have a 4 own airline flight rule for status. Others like BA & QF do have own airline flight rule for status. AA has good mileage redemption chart, and no surcharges, unless on a BA flight.

However frequent flyer partners can change. A little more so if the airline is not in one of 3 major alliances.

Very few credit cards give status earning. A lot give redeemable ff miles/points.

If flying business class that should give lounge access. Otherwise you need mid level status (in an alliance)

Still the airline you fly most or an airline of the country you live is the best ffp for many people. Generally you are better earning on your primary airline due to greater recognition, better service when disruptions, ability to upgrade flights, possible operational upgrades and simpler to earn non flying ff miles/points.

Thanks for the response.
Sorry should of clarified a bit better. I'm aware of EY being outside of any formal alliance. I guess I am more wanting to know if there is any one program on *A that I would benefit from joining to credit my flights towards. Turkish obviously have a large network but don't fly to Australasia however I believe they would transfer my status to Gold fairly easily.
If I was to stop flying exclusively with Etihad I think the Star alliance members are generally the airlines I would be using. SQ/TG for Asia Pacific and TK for elsewhere.

Many thanks,
Cs