My wife and I both are both retired, actually me a year ago, her in a month. We generally easily maintain *A Silver on UA. I have been 1P *G occasionally. We have a comfortable number of MP RDMs.

1) Home Airport - SAN/CLD, international gateways LAX and SFO.
2) Fares bought - discount economy.
3) Annual miles - 40-60K for me, 25-30K for my wife.
4) Status - We are UA 2P *S. I could make 1P *G if I credit an OZ trip to UA.
5) Most important benefit - Priority services and lounge access.
6) Routes - SAN-SFO/DEN/NYC and US west coast to Southeast Asia, most often BKK.
7) Airlines - UACO domestic, any *A to SEAsia (TG, SQ, OZ, NH).
8) 100% out of pocket pleasure travel.

We like upgrading lowball economy UA fares to SEAsia with miles and copays. We will not fly UA to SEAsia in regular E or E+. We have flown Thai premium economy and it's okay. We have redeemed MP miles for C awards which are fine of course, but we like status and want to earn miles when we fly. It looks like MP will be downgrading miles earned ratios on the lowball fares we like.

I have a flight this fall on OZ (W), LAX-REP and BKK-LAX ~ 16400 miles, and 4 TG flights intra-region (H) ~2000 miles.

And we both have a trip booked Spring 2012, SAN-SFO-HKG on UA (W) ~7000 miles, upgraded NC with miles, and HKG-IST-LAX on TK, Comfort Class (A) ~12000 miles.

Unless I am missing something, it looks to me like if I credit my two trips to OZ Asiana Club I will have ~33K toward *G (40K) with them. I'm a little unclear as to the status term, but it looks like 24 months from "Reference Day," whatever that is?

And if my wife credits her trip to A3, she could have ~15.5K toward *G with them (20K). I'm again unclear as to the status term, but it looks like it is not so much calendar based as it is from date of first qualifying flight, or ?

Add in our regular domestic trips on UA to NYC, DEN and SFO and we could both be *G.

I am asking if this looks like a reasonable course of action, me crediting to OZ, my wife to A3. OZ works for our SEAsia destinations. My wife travels domestically by herself, so "needs" her own status. It looks good to me, but I have been known to miss obvious downsides and would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hi PVDtoDEL,

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately US is not an option as their website does not show South Africa in the Find Airport dropdown, so I would not be able to book any flights with them without going through SAA and forcing me always to travel via Europe.

Frequent Flyer Help
 

Hi just moved jobs and looks like I'll be doing a lot more travel to the far east. Not really been taking my current flyer memberships seriously so need some advice. What scheme will get me quickest access to silver level?

(1) What is your home airport? EDI or GLA (so can change various places eg LHR, LGW, CDG, AMS)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Premium Economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? approx 50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? not anything worth writing home about.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge access, upgrades
(6) Which routes do you fly most often GLA or EDI->Taiwan, Korea and Japan 4 or 5 trips a year. GLA or EDI -> LHR
(7) Preferred Airlines Something with decent premium economy to Asia
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work, choice at the moment is economy or premium economy but should be allowed some business class travel from next year (assume not for now).

Thanks in advance for any replies.

morrison1984: A3 only needs 3k (well, 4k, but you get 1k for free) to reach Silver. However, with your travel pattern, you can easily reach *G there (19k) in a short time. If you want a higher chance to upgrades, it's always suggested to participate in your main flying carrier's program. (See below)

Given Premium Economy is still a bit of a niche product, I'm not so sure on which routes it's existing. As usually Asian carriers over a better product then European one's, I would check out about TK's premium economy product, which is (from what I've seen and heard) more like a business class/economy class combo, but still priced at (more expensive, but affordable) economy prices. Also, their program is quite good to achieve *G, and if you would choose them as the main carrier, it would of course be better to have *G on them than on A3 or any other program. Their *G lounge in IST is also what can be called industry leading standard. I think if Premium Economy from IST to Asia is available on those routes you'll be taking, together with their superior lounge in IST, and their good food in the air (Already quite good in plain economy, much better in Comfort Class - their Y+ product) plus rather good earning rates when flying, would probably make them my choice.

That said, also the Y+ product from TG is good. I don't have experience with the Y+ from ANA, but it might be worth to have a look at it.

Both TK and TG offer quite a lot of connections to China/Korea/Islands around there.

Besides that, I'm not perfectly sure which would be your perfect program/carrier, as Y+ is always a bit hard to choose from, but just from the hard and soft product, I would go with TK, and if you indeed do so, also choose their FFP to put your miles to.

Happy flying ^

Thanks for the reply. I joined A3 a while back so have the 1000 miles sitting there. Will take a closer look at their program.

It's great how easy it would be to attain and keep status with them. Heck, it probably be pretty easy to get to Diamond Plus (100,000 miles over 24 months) with them. However, having had a look at their program, I'm not so keen. Their redemption rates seem pretty high and their mileage bonus for elites pretty low. Those two together would make any redemptions much tougher for me.

On a side note, have just taken the Virgin Australia Velocity status match - will be eyeing up their program pretty closely too as they partner with NZ, SQ, VS, EY - all of which useful for my travel patterns.

Mark

You missed OZ's biggest benifit (IMO) - lifetime *G for 500k miles.

Help on choosing *A partner
 

I am a M/M Silver card holder with around 65000 status miles currently. Getting *G status looks to be difficult and maintaining it looks difficult as well. I would like to know which *A program should I opt for to get *G easily. My preferences are as below

(1) My home airport is DEL
(2) I don't have any preference of fares. I buy whatever is available.
(3) I fly between 25K - 50 K miles each year.
(4) I currently have M/M FT status
(5) I look for free lounge access, priority services when flying and frequent upgrades on travel. I would also like an easy online method of miles redemption
(6) I fly once a year to USA, once a year to Europe, once a year to Africa, once a year to Dubai and once a year to Singapore / HK.
(7) LH / CO / Emirates / Singapore Airlines
(8) I can choose airlines and class of service


Thanks and regards.............Shailendra Bansal

Your choices:

A3/TK/OZ/AC/BD

I personally like A3, but TK is pretty good as well...

Thanks. As I see A3 needs 20,000 status miles for *G wherease AC needs 35,000 and both TK and OZ 40,000. Does that mean A3 is the way to go?
Any disadvantage with A3? Once *G is achieved how easy or difficult is itto retain the same? I read somewhere that converting A3 award miles to award flights / upgrades is difficult as they don't have an online system and one has to call them in Greece. is that true?

many thanks for your help and guidance............Shailendra Bansal

yes, you have to call greece. the status lasts for 3 years as long as your account remains active (you credit at least a flight per a certain period of time - either 6 months or a year, I don't remember)

I personally use A3, and I have had no issues with them. Communication over email has been proffessional, and the greek call center has low wait times and is efficient at booking reward tickets. reward levels are ok.

TK, AC, and OZ have credit cards in some parts of the world, so if you are into that kind of stuff and it is available in your country, you should keep that in mind.

Guess this is also a great place to ask for help :)

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

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Depends on the Airline (Q, H, S, etc.) mainly on discounted tickets for Economy and I do use Business class

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
40K-80K (without business travels usually in the 40-50K range)

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)
None at the moment

(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.)
Lounge Access and Good Redemption (if other perks like upgrades and priority service came with it I won't complain ;) )

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
Mainly from Tokyo to Europe/US

(7) Preferred Airlines
United/CO, Singapore Airline, Thai Air, Asiana, Lufthansa
it all depends on where I am flying

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
I usually travel for leisure but there are times when I travel for business.
For leisure I sometimes travel on Business Class when I don't want to hassle with long haul...but lately mainly on economy

I posted a question in the AC forum and BMI inquiring whether those are worthy considering the lower thresholds, but this would be a great place to get an actual opinion based on my flying patterns.

Thanks in advance!!

Advice appreciated
 

I'm currently enrolled in the ANA mileage program and wonder if its the best option for me. Please let me know what you think.

(1) What is your home airport? Hong Kong (HKG)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Economy (saver (50%) - Flexi(70%) miles)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (around 25K)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (good award redemption rates)
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (HKG-ZRH, HKG -TYO)
(7) Preferred Airlines (SQ, NH, LX)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (pleasure)

ANy advice welcome.
Thanks in advance.

A3 is your only choice with 25k miles a year.

I'd suggest Asiana - they have a low lifetime star alliance gold threshold (relative, 500k miles is still a lot), and you can fly them TYO-US... You always get better treatment if you have *G with the airline you are flying on compared to another airline, which is why I suggest flying with the airline that you have your FFP with as often as possible.

Since I read that in this thread quite a lot of times I always wonder: wouldn't Asiana with 40k in two years be just as good (provided one can wait that long or has status somewhere else already)? Being able to distribute the flying unevenly over the two years might make it even easier to maintain/get in the first place.. Or maybe I am not seeing some other disadvantage here?