Reaching *G is not my main concern as I will fly 100,000 to 150,000 miles per year, mostly within Asia or Asia-Europe and all in Y.

I really don't like M&M that much... they are only good if you fly LH Group a lot, which is absolutely not the case for me. My main carriers are SQ, TG, CX, BR or OZ.

Maintaining *G is therefore not a big issue. I just want easy and "relatively cheap" award tickets. :cool:

(1) What is your home airport? JED & LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? C & Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 40-50K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BD Gold
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Free Lounge Access, miles not expiring, priority services, good award redemption rates
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (Saudi Arabia to UK, intra Europe and transatlantic to west coast USA
(7) Preferred Airlines BMI, occasionally LH & TK
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure mainly if work flights always Y but can chose airline (cheapest)

Just re qualified BD Gold but looking for options ? Have award flights JED-LHR returns booked for Christmas/New Year and and again at end of January, so no rush to decide before I start earning again in 2012. The replies suggest A3, OZ or TK but what suits me if I jump ship next year.

If you fly TK, then it's probably your best option. You always are better off with status on your "home" carrier than a *G from another carrier.

But yes, A3, OZ, and TK are the choices that you are probably looking at.

(1) What is your home airport? LHR
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Mostly J, a bit of Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 80k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BD Gold
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Good earn/burn
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? LHR - DME/IST/other random eastern european places
(7) Preferred Airlines? Usually fly TK, LH or OS.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work

Thanks in advance!

Is there any way you can stretch your miles to 100k? Maybe with mileage runs sprinkled in during the year? crossing 100k opens up a lot of good options. Miles/More becomes attractive at first glance since you would be flying Miles/More members. United's MileagePlus @100k Gets you 1k (Next year it will be Premier 1k) and 6 SWU's + 100% bonus non-eqm miles. Also, are you a resident of Germany? If so, Senator take 130k. I didnt want to assume anything by lhr being your home base. Also, are do you want to stay within *A? Sorry if I'm asking too much! :)

doctor_j: It's quite a hard one.. if you have a lot of longer European flights, the programs offering fixed earning rates for European flights would probably be less good than those with real milage ratio (especially for flights Ex-London to Istanbul, Russia, and the like..)

On the other hand, SEN on M&M is probably the best status you could get, and definitely possible in your case (100k status miles, which is not that much if you fly mostly J, as each J European flight will net you 2k+25% Bonus)

On the other hand, London to Istanbul would give you more miles on those programs calculating it miles*2 in J - like A3. You could achieve much more worthwhile status than A3, of course, but I would definitely be looking for a program which gives the "best bang for your flown miles". I'm not such an expert which program would be the best indeed then, but I would be looking for one which gives 2*real milage on European flights in C, and 1*real milage in Economy, for those flights you'll have in Y. I guess someone else could advise you better which program is ideal.

I really appreciate the detailed replies!
It's possible. By the end of this year, I'll have flown around 115-120...

That's my thinking to - I'm leaning to M&M or TK's programme, for no particularly reason. I fell into BD by luck and have never really thought too hard about the best programme before...

Interesting. Hadn't thought about United. I assumed that US-based airlines go out of business every other week! I will look into it, but not sure given I never fly to the states...

Nope!
Not at all! Thanks for all your help!!

Which are those?

Status isn't so important to me... the most important thing is good earning rates and reasonable award rates on award tickets to Asia...

Cheers all!

Need advice please - looking to move from Emirates Skywards
 

(1) What is your home airport? DXB
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 25-30k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Skywards Silver
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Lounge Access, priority services, good award redemption rates
(6) Which routes do you fly most often Dubai-Australia, Dubai-Western Europe, Dubai-West Coast USA
(7) Preferred Airlines SQ, LX
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

A3, TK, OZ.

Take your pick.

Even if a carrier files for bankruptcy, it seldom (if ever) affects a frequent flyer program. Unless the airline disappears (Like our beloved BD) your FF programs would stay intact. An airline's bankruptcy is just a restructuring of capital. In its darkest days, UA's FF program was not at risk.

The path of least resistance (and subsequent stress), may be to use Miles & More since so much of your travel is in Europe. LH isn't going to be thoroughly impressed with you being a UA 1k. But if you are a Senator, you'll notice the difference.

You may be able to see this again if American Airlines files for Chapter 11 protection.

Whats nice with United, you get the 6 SWU's (System Wide Upgrades), and you should be able to use them on LH for any LH long haul trips you take. What I dont know the answer to is if your residency/country citizenship affects you getting some of UA's benefits. But a call to UA should quickly address those things.

Remember, next year United will require 4 segments on UA for any status

(1) What is your home airport? TPA.

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? regular economy. >3hrs flights - business.

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 2012 I will begin flying mostly California & New York..some Texas and North Carolina. expected to fly over 2 dozen flights.

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? None. Just what comes with my AMEX Platinum. (I can open an airline specific card to gain more miles after I guess)

(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Mainly looking to gain *A status to get upgrades on travel. If I axe the AMEX Plat. then lounges would be important as well.

(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Mostly domestic (FL to West Coast/NY), though I will have 3 flights that will be international (Canada, Caribbeans, Europe)

(7) Preferred Airlines - whichever airline has the best service, ease in upgrading/award redemption, sensible routes based on my hometown airport, also airplanes used (I am 6'5", small airplanes and I don't get along unless it's absolutely necessary)

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Mostly work - will have to be economy, but hoping I gain status and get the ability to get upgrades.

-somewhat off topic but based on my hometown airport and where I would be flying to, should I even fly with *A or should I fly DL?

Thanks!! :)

I'd recommend US..

On DL and UACO, if you aren't flying 75k miles a year, your upgrades will be rare...

As a US Airways Gold, you are basically guarenteed an Exit Row or bulkhead if you don't get an upgrade.

I'd suggest you go to the US forum and find out about a "challenge" that might help you out...

Cheers.

Thank you for your help! I really appreciate it! :)

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

I work at sea, so I get flown home r/t twice a year by my employer. It's hard to say what my home airport is, as I'm a bit homeless and tend to travel a fair bit during my 3 month 'off' periods. I was born in New Zealand though and spent a decade in London too, so AKL and LHR figure highly. During my Nov-Jan leave period I'll typically disembark at PMI or BCN, get my own flight to London, visit friends, then fly LHR to LAX or AKL on my boat's allowance. At the end of my 3 months off I'll get flown to SXM (Jan/Feb) or NCE (Jul/Aug) to rejoin the boat. Sorry, cr*ppy answer to a simple question...

(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
I can only afford Economy. I've only ever flown biz once and it was an award ticket on SQ.

(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Between 50k and 65k, the latter if I do a random trip like AKL-CPT. So let's say 50-52k to be on the safe side.

(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)
Oh god, this is a mess because I don't have a lot of control over what airline my boat chooses to fly me on. I've ended up so many FFPs but I'm basic-level in all of them. I have:
SQ = 890 miles: I didn't feel I was getting much value
NZ = $358 (142 status pts): Switched to this from SQ. Regretting it!!
BA = 4096 (10 status pts)
Air Berlin = 4490 (3990 status pts): joined this cos my g/f wanted a cheap fare PMI to JFK, so that's what we went with... sigh
QR = 11966, (50 status pts): similar reason to above... nice airline tho :-)

(5) What is most important to you in a FFP?
This might be really unrealistic given my annual mileage, but I would love more upgrades! Sick of Y class - I'm 6'6" tall and sick of the hassle of getting enough leg-room. I (perhaps wrongly) believe that higher status = chance of op-ups plus of course award upgrades etc. Lounge access is great too, especially if the boat's booked me a dog-awful 40-hour AKL-LAX-JFK-SXM flight or something. I love little things like priority check-in, being able to bypass the throngs of other Y travellers etc. That last one isn't a show-stopper tho.

(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
I probably answered this in question 1. A fair amount of Europe to New Zealand, via either Asia or LAX. Dribs and drabs of PMI-BCN and PMI-London but usually on budget carriers. Domestic NZ. Occasional NZ to SYD or MEL.

(7) Preferred Airlines
For me it's mostly about Y-class leg-room, but other than that I'm easy. As you can see from my various FFP miles I'm not really heavily invested in anything.

(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
As you can see, I get two free return 'home port' flights a year from wherever the boat is. The boat - in theory - gives me no choice of airlines, but sometimes I can try to influence the alliance - i.e. OneWorld or Star. Pleasure flights obviously I have total control over but it's probably only about 10k/year of my 50-65k miles. Class-wise - it's always Y. IMPORTANT NOTE: the marine industry always gets 'marine fares' - these are fully refundable, sometimes cheaper (sometimes more expensive) and come with a 40kg (or 2x23kg) baggage allowance. This means our boat has a more narrow choice of airlines, because not all airlines do marine/seaman's fares. I don't know at this point what airlines exactly but so far they've flown me on Thai, Cathay, BA, Air France and Air NZ. I can try to get a full list from our boat's travel agent tomorrow.

So it's a bit of a tough call really, because I don't have total control over the airline chosen. Is there any FFP that can do 'catch-all' and get me miles on most airlines? Am also thinking of getting a UK credit card with some kind of miles accrual - any advice on which are the best? I spend about 15k (UK pounds) a year on my card (flights, hotels, online purchases, etc).

Any advice appreciated... I just want to make the most of all the travel & spending I do, as I'm sure I must be missing out on a lot of rewards simply because I don't know which way to run / join / book...

mucho thanks in advance!!