(1) What is your home airport? LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy short haul, PE or J long haul.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Massively varied. Leisure flyer but with family and friends around Europe and the US.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BA Silver
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access for short haul flights and potentially the ability to redeem something useful (this always seems to be difficult).
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: N/A
(7) Preferred Airlines: No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure.

The main reason why I am asking is because I have a return flight from CDG to AKL in business booked and I can't work out where to credit it to and then use as my *A FFP. I believe it is all Lufthansa ticketed so using M&M doesn't seem the best place to credit it but thanks to the P fare class I'm not sure Aegean, Turkish or Asiana are any good either? If it helps I'm flying Paris to Frankfurt and then to Singapore with fare class P with Lufthansa before fare class J Air New Zealand to Auckland. On the return it is Singapore Airlines D fare class AKL to SIN and then Swiss P class SIN to ZRH and ZRH to CDG.

• Star Alliance credits based on operating carrier (OW used marketing carrier-flight number)
• Star Alliance code shares do not always map 1 to 1 with fare booking class's. You never know what the fare booking class will be on the operating carrier. Hence earnings can be a unknown (more of a problem on cheaper economy fares)
• Who issued the ticket (LH) is irrelevant in most ffp's

So you have
CDG-FRA-SIN-AKL on LH(P) LH(P) NZ(D)
AKL-SIN-ZRH-CDG on SQ(P) LX(P) LX(P)
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=CDG-FRA...SU=kts&RS=best
Are these native flights on each airline or codeshare? [LHxxx, SQxxx, NZxxxx or something different]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Changi_Airport

https://www.wheretocredit.com/lufthansa/p
https://www.wheretocredit.com/air-new-zealand/d
https://www.wheretocredit.com/singapore-airlines/p
https://www.wheretocredit.com/swiss/p

You will not get lounge access unless you get mid tier status

Be mindful of expiry Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire. Click to open the wiki.

(1) HAU and SVG
(2) V
(3) <25K
(4) Basically starting fresh.
(5) Baggage and lounge
(6) Europe
(7) SAS, KLM, Norwegian.
(8) Pleasure, I normally do not book tickets myself.

Yes, typically. I generally fly OW much more and use that for my long-haul redemption's.

(1) What is your home airport? BRU
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy short haul, J long haul.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? +100K. I am currently at 85K miles and at least the same amount scheduled
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? LH Sen, Flying Blue Platinum
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access for short haul flights and redeeming flight in J without too much hard cash for taxes
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: BRU - ATL, BRU-LAX, BRU-BKK, BRU - MEL, BRU - SYD
(7) Preferred Airlines: No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Business

In 2 weeks I am renewing my SEN status already, so I am exploring my options, HON seems almost impossible for me to achieve and I really dislike the fact I have to pay between €500 to €600 sur-fuel charges and taxes on a long haul business class ticket.

Most important for me is that I can redeem award flights for me and my family without really feeling it in the wallet.

(1) What is your home airport? AKL
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Economy long haul
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Large variation. Likely to start flying to conferences, which is why I'm asking. I have at least 40k planned the next 12 months, will likely be more in the 25k zone for the following years but will deviate a lot. Unlikely to maintain a high amount of miles in the short term.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? No.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Maybe lounge access, understand too little about rewards. I do want a program that I can use in the next decade since I hope to do much more travel once I graduate.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? AKL-TPE, almost all my flights are long-haul.
(7) Preferred Airlines: Since I'm based in NZ right now, often the only choice is Air NZ, Singapore (which I like)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Both. I can choose my airline for work (economy), we go through a travel agent so I can send specific itineraries.

I've haven't traveled much before, but I will start going to conferences on a semi-regular basis. Planning separate trips to California, Europe and Asia in the next 12 months so I should be able to rack up a couple of miles in the near future. Since I'm looking to be able to travel much more in the future, it would be good to be in a program that would be future proof, particularly because I do not know what city I will be based in in the future.

Star Alliance seems like my only choice right now, since I often need to rely on Air NZ flights, let me know if I'm wrong though. I've done a bit of background research, and it does seem like I'll fit under Asiana Airlines as it says in the FAQ (also I have family who travel much more infrequently which I can mileage pool). One thing I'm really confused about though is class fares (let me know if I should post this somewhere else), for example I'm planning to go AKL-SFO/LAX return in May, and the tickets are L class, which it seems won't be able earn mileage on, or am I misunderstanding something? Thanks

I am not an expert in all *A FFPs but here are some thoughts:
- I moved away from SEN a few years ago, the one thing I do miss is the companion award. But I agree that the fuel surcharges are ridiculous.
- If you're looking for the lowest charges, you should definitely look into United's MileagePlus. There is sometimes a huge difference with what LH charges. Another benefit of this is that you'd still be able to earn some miles in low Economy classes within Europe (e.g. on SN/LH/LX/OS). However, for your longhaul Business Class flights you might not earn as much as on M&M. Check also if you can reach status with that.
- I use Aegean's Miles&Bonus as my primary programme but I must admit that most times I earn nothing on Economy within Europe (so I credit those on UA).

Hi everyone,

First post as I am only recently getting into this game, following some long-haul business class flights.

(1) What is your home airport? ZRH
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Generally economy
(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? Miles & More Frequent Traveller (*A Silver)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Making short-haul intra-European travel more comfortable (priority, lounge etc) along with the occassional J class award upgrade
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: Leisure: Short haul European economy (monthly), 2-3 intercontinental economy-premium economy. Corporate: Occasional trip around Europe + intercontinental
(7) Preferred Airlines: LX because of location; SQ for flight comfort.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Mix; pleasure predominantly though.

For this calendar year, I have accumulated 21k status as MM already, but I am thinking about changing, given the exorbitant requirements for Senator (compared to other *A gold FFP). I have an upcoming SQ flight SYD-ZRH in J, whch will yield another 20k. In addition to this, I will have around 5-10k by June 1st. Following June 1st, my schedule is unclear, so cannot say how much I will accumulate (work-related travel could either be a few international J class or nothing). Furthermore, being Swiss-based, I earn award miles through the MM credit cards.

Hence, my question would be whether to "stick it out" with MM, given the situation outlined above, or if I should be looking at the "usual suspects" like Aegan or Turkish?

Thanks for any input - much appreciated!

Similar situation as you albeit from other part of world. I'm Canadian, so the loyalty program for me would be AC's Aeroplan. However, I find that AC is very stingy with how it hands out the elite qualifying miles, particularly for deep discount tickets. For that reason, I credit my flights to United's MilagePlus program. They seem to offer 100% elite milage accrual on most of the airlines I fly (including the LH Group of airlines). *Gold with them only requires hitting 50,000 miles per year and flying 4 times on United operated flights. There is no revenue requirement (yet) for non-US residents like myself (who now resides in the UK). That being said, I still earn Aeroplan Miles which I credit to my Aeroplan account with the various credit cards and local offers available to me. When it comes time to book travel, I'll often look at which program offers the best benefits for the travel at hand. I've used Aeroplan to book United award tickets, then update the frequent flyer info on the award ticket so I got all my Gold benefits (i.e. Extra leg room seating, bag allowance, lounge access, complimentary upgrades, etc.). United also has a program that offers lifetime status after you fly 1,000,000 miles with them. United also has peculiarities that may work in your favour. For instance, UA and NH *Gold members get access to LH lounges even when flying on the cheapest EuroWings ticket. This is a benefit I don't believe even LH elites get access to.

Another program to consider is Asiana's Milage Club. With their program, it's possible to earn up to 4 years of elite status by accruing 50,000 miles as their qualifying period lasts 2 years (instead of 1) and once you hit Gold status automatically gets extended by a further 2 years. Another big benefit of their program is you can earn lifetime Gold with them after flying just 500,000 miles across any of the *A partners, not just Asiana. Accruals aren't as generous as UA but then again, once you get status you're set!

Aegean is of course another possibility particularly with their lower requalification requirement. My only concern there is the requirement that you have to fly so many Aegean segments to re-qualify, which may or may not work out for you. In addition, they've been forced to make many adjustments to their program over the past couple of years, most notably because they were too generous in the past with their program (IIRC they once were handing out lifetime *Gold like candy).

Can't comment much on Turkish as I haven't researched them thoroughly but would recommend you keep United and Asiana in mind.

Safe Travels,

James

You don't have to fly 4 segments on A3 to requalify - you just need 24K instead of 12K.

Also, there haven't been that many changes since the toughening of *G qualification criteria (back in 2015?). The only significant change in the last 3 years has been charging *G for sitting upfront (they get a 50% discount). Obviously this has gone down like a lead balloon but I can't think of anything else that's similar. They haven't yet taken away +1PC for *G HBO bookings, as LH and SK have done. And there haven't been any sudden massive devaluations in the award chart (c.f. QR). The biggest problem has come from the partner side - like LH effectively giving zero on the most common Eco fares, and even for business thanks to the dreaded P fare.

After the nerfing of the UA MileagePlus program via dynamic award award pricing, I am looking for a new *A program.

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

ZRH/MUC

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)

Y (cheapest possible).

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

2-3 long-haul r/t + a dozen or so short-haul sectors.

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

None.

(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.)

Redeemable miles to use for $-saving redemptions in Y. No hard expiry (i.e. extendable expiry dates).

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

TATL and EU-JNB/CPT, as well as intra-EU and occasional US domestics.
​​​​​​
(7) Preferred Airlines

Not really bothered, but LX is the *A carrier I use the most.

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

Pure pleasure. I am now semi-retired and fund all my own travel.

I realise that, with my style of travel, I am not going to get much from any FFP, but not much is better than nothing.

Before the move to dynamic award pricing, UA suited me well. Now, I am really struggling to find any value anywhere.

I discontinued LH M&M a few years ago, due to hard expiry and cash fees on award flights. Now I am wondering if it might be the best of a bad lot. I could get around the expiry by getting an Austrian credit card and the fees by using the miles solely on US domestics, but I would be interested to know if I can find something better.

Your options are likely to be limited, since the two obvious choices (LH, UA) have been ruled out.

Remember that even with the switch to dynamic pricing you'll still be able to avoid this by doing redemptions on partners rather than on UA itself. LH switched to revenue based earning (not redemptions) but this can be avoided by booking through partner airlines where possible (UA, LO).

The way things are heading it's only ever going to make sense to both earn and redeem on *A partner airlines, never with the airline itself!

That might be the answer. Credit partner flights to UA and burn the miles on partners.

Where to credit UA flights to though? Aer Lingus Avios?

(1) What is your home airport? LAS
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y - specifically usually K or the cheapest ticket above basic economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 80k+
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Was UA Platinum until last year, didn’t meet PQD, now no status
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access, additional luggage allowance, priority check-in and boarding, preferred seat selection
(6) Which routes do you fly most often Transpacific 3x/yr, Transatlantic 3x/yr, South Africa 1x/yr
(7) Preferred Airlines UA, NH, TG, SQ, BR, LH, LX
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure only

This request for advice is actually for my travel partner, but we fly the exact same routes.

I was able to maintain platinum status on UA last year due to the Chase PQD waiver by spending $25k on their United card; my travel partner can’t do that.

These are our stats from last year (our PQDs weren’t even close):
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2cfe4e980e.jpg

He’d like to have Star Gold status for a few reasons - it would help both of us with United Club access when flying domestically on UA (not often, but sometimes for a positioning flight), and on the rare occasions when we travel with other friends, we could both have a +1 in the lounge.

I think Asiana seems to be the best for him - I know that a lot of the fares we book will only give 50% mileage, but he’ll still be able to meet the 40,000 minimum within 2 years and maintain it following that.

I’d like to hear if anyone else has any other opinions.

Thank you!