Typically travel in J, fare 3-5K GBP. I do not usually dont buy tickets with zero flexibility. Scotland - South America is likely once/twice a year, but I would probably just do that on Skyteam as the routes work well. Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur all likely next year.

with a lot of South America and all the SE Asia it makes little sense to go with UA since they won’t sell you tickets on their own ticket stock ex-UK.
The problem with preferential treatment during disruption is: Depends on the airline you fly and not the one you have Elite status with. For example when I fly LH they see UA*G, but whether I just have Gold or a lot more, they have no idea. They treat me like any other *G customer. So you need to think about which airline serves your destinations effectively and you can attain *G with - probably LH group then. Earnings are not great, but that didn’t matter much to you. Their new system is better to earn - each of your trips will be 4 segments in J … should work out to get SEN, but your trips will might need to do that calculation.

I am based in Germany and will be flying with ANA once every month from January to May 2025 from Germany to Japan, in Business (in total 5 return flights).
I do have an active M&M account, but apparently I will not be able to progress to get status as M&M counts only LH Group flights for progressing.

What other Star Alliance program would let me progress and get status from those flights?
I probably will not fly ANA anymore other than for those 5 months, thus maybe registering with ANA is not really a good option?
FYI, I do have a United account but I do not really use it.

Thank you

Which booking class do these ticket book into? Virgin Atlantic could be a good option if you are otherwise flying ST. 750 Tier points is 75% of the way to Gold. 150-200% RDM.
UA can be very good in D, C and J class, 250-300% RDM. Will earn 15k PQP which is close to Platinum, but 4 UA segments are needed.
TAP will get you status with these trips. I don’t think TAP miles are worth much - but you get *A Gold With these 5 return flights.
Unless they are in P class, TK could be a good option as well.

Unfortunately Virgin Atlantic is not an option from Hamburg.
Do you need to fly TAP or TK segments to also keep status?
I do have a TK account also.

I meant crediting to VS. VS is a partner for NH.

You should be good with TK and TP. Just note to avoid P class with TK. If you are buying D or higher you should really consider UA and somehow get the 4 UA segments needed for status

Recommendation for a FF program for the following settings?
1. Home airport: SNA
2. Fares: N
3. Miles/Y: <25K
4. Status: Alaska MVP Gold
5. FFP importance: Upgrades, lounge access, priority services
6. Routes: Mostly US West Coast
7. Preferred airlines: Alaska, American, Emirates, Delta
8. Travel mode: Both work and pleasure

Just stick with Alaska. 25k miles per year gets you next to nothing, and you already have something.

Hi Guys,

I was going for EVA diamond this year but my cutoff was 11/30 and I missed the threshold by 2000 miles. And despite flying long-haul J class the next day, EVA was unwilling to grant an exception. I'll be honest I'm kind of disheartened and am thinking of moving to a different *A plan. But if all things considered, EVA is the best, I will stick with it.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) TPE
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) Business (Long-Haul) and Economy (Short-Haul)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 100K~150K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc) EVA 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.) Free ticket availability (Mainly Taiwan-Japan) and upgrade availability
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) TPE to FRA, DFW, IAH, JFK; also Taiwan - Japan
(7) Preferred Airlines NH, SQ, BR
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service?) Both

Thank you!

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) LAS
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) C
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 100-150K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) Lifetime UA Gold; AA Executive Platinum [oneworld Emerald]
(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 availability and rates
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) Predominately trans-Pacific with an occasional trans-Atlantic thrown in
(7) Preferred Airlines Doesn't matter
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Work and I have full monetary control

I have a Star first class RTW ex-Japan coming up. Really trying to sort out how those tickets will best fit into a frequent flier program.

Formerly AC super elite, then they added a $$ qualifier and it was way too high. Then I was SQ medium elite, bailed on them for OZ due to their generous earning period and 2 year status. But since they're on the outs I guess I'm FFP shopping again.

1) Home Airport: YVR
2) Fares: Usually I buy the cheapest economy, United K, Copa L that kinda thing. I generally steer clear of AC domestic flights cuz those flights usually earn 0 on most programs. I also fly a lot of standby as an airline employee, the reason for status is lounge access, I have PP but having Star lounge access is invaluable when you're transiting places like IAH that have no (or virtually no) PP presence. When I do buy fares it's usually lowest, but if it's worthwhile I don't mind buying up a bit. The problem I often have is buying basic economy on United is K, buying the next level up, still K, Avianca does the same thing.
3) Miles: Totally random, in theory I could buy 0 paid tickets and still do all my travelling. I'd like to maintain whatever status gets me Star Gold. Preferably whichever one has the lowest mileage requirement.
4) Current Status: Asiana Diamond, I was going to try and requalify by the end of May 2025, but if they're gonna leave Star Alliance likely sometime in 2025, I don't wanna have my status pulled or moved to Skyteam where it would be a lot less useful to me.
5) Most important thing: Lounge Access and secondary would be decent redemption values. Aeroplan gives me really good redemption values, Asiana point levels were okay, but the fees are pretty poor.
6) Frequent routes: Transborder routes CAN/USA, domestic USA and northern latin america. I'm a frequent customer of Copa flights as they earned 70% to Asiana.
7) Preferred airlines: I mean Star alliance in general, but AC, CM, AV, UA are my top 4.
8) Work/Pleasure: Pleasure only and in the handful of times I've flown for work, I could basically force my way onto AC.

I'd looked at A3 in the past, but it sounds like they've recently changed their rules for the worse. I've looked at TK but IIRC off the top of my head, pretty much none of the fares I buy would earn. AC 50k levels requires $6,000 spend in a year for just 1 year of status, that's probably out of the question, but I also assume that spend has to be done through the AC website which makes it TOTALLY out of the question. I don't know UA well enough, maybe it's an option, I'm open to looking at SQ again, I don't remember exactly why I left. Don't know much about any of the other programs.

Any advice from fellow economy flyers?

I have an upcoming journey that when crediting it to TK Miles & Smiles would take me from 0 to 83% on my way to Elite/*G.
Since I don't have that many upcoming flights within 2025 I guess this would be my best bet, right?
Would have credited it to Asiana, but since the merger is now through this would probably be a waste of miles.

(1) What is your home airport? VIE
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? mixed, but either Y/Y+ or C
(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? nothing on *A
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? priority services when flying the airline
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Inner-Europe
(7) Preferred Airlines? OS of course high on the list (and IIRC different from LH OS's P class should credit 100% with TK, right?)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? mostly pleasure

Austrian P fare does indeed credit 100% to Turkish. Another note, minimum 800 miles, not super important to ME, but being central europe based such as yourself 800 miles from Vienna is anywhere from London to Athens, from Copenhagen to Marseille. And that's per segment of course, so if you were so inclined to fly VIE-MUC-CDG that would be 1600 miles. HOWEVER, a word of warning, for someone like myself, KTLR all credit 0%. I'm not sure about R, but IIRC KTL are the most common Lufthansa Group economy fare buckets. I know I've seen a few good LH prices over the years ex-YVR and then immediately threw them away when I saw the earning rates. TK might be a good option for you, I'm not super familiar with the LH group programs, but those would be worth a look of course.

Mostly stuck here as I have a new home hub (Lisbon, Portugal) and have zero experience on optimizing here. TAP seems like the obvious option but...

(1) What is your home airport? Lisbon, Portugal
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Business from Lisbon to Asia-these tend to be Turkish Airlines flights. Economy within Europe-mostly TAP or BA.
(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? nothing on Star Alliance
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access and any kind of family benefits
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Inner-Europe (Lisbon to London round trip by far the most frequent)
(7) Preferred Airlines? No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Mostly work

Hi all! I have several upcoming flights on different star alliance airlines which probably will give me status if I link them to one ff programme (several ETH long haul flights on J). I hardly ever use ETH so not interested in that programme. I have united, and last year I put my points on that but I didn�t make the 4 required united flights so I didn�t get status. My question is which other programme could I log in and make best use of my points? I was thinking aeroplan or copa. grateful for your views! TIA

(1) What is your home airport? NYC, (mainly JFK, also LGA, prefer to avoid EWR)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Business for work, Econ or Prem econ for pleasure
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? over 50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? nothing on Star Alliance. silver on oneworld and skyteam
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? good redemption for business tickets
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? transatlantic
(7) Preferred Airlines? No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? both