Not sure how active this thread is. I see lots of folks asking though, so I'll add mine.

(1) What is your home airport? --WAS (IAD or DCA are equally convenient for me)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? -- depends, most of my flights are awards up front though
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? -- maybe 25K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? -- nope
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? -- premium international awards
(6) Which routes do you fly most often -- to Asia mainly
(7) Preferred Airlines -- like the Asian airlines
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? pleasure only

I have been putting my *A miles mostly into UA, but with the devaluation coming I am rethinking. Just cashed in most of my miles on an F redemption to Asia for next year. Collect a lot of UR points, but can change that spend to other places if need be. Considered going back to Aeroplan again but see they are also devaluing again too so figured that may not be a good place to go either.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)
SEA
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
I usually buy Economy or Premium Economy
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
25-50K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)
Not an FFP, but I have SPG 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.)
Award redemption availability and upgrades would be good. I used to have Cathay Pacific, and I still have 60K miles with them that I can't redeem because they never have availability.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
One SEA - HKG flight a year and a few random US or Canada flights
(7) Preferred Airlines
ANA, Air Canada, EVA
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
Pleasure

(1) What is your home airport? FRA / DUS / CGN / BRU / AMS
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? cheap Y or C
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 2-3 rt's between Europe and Asia ( mostly Thailand ) + some inner Asian
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? BA Gold came from BD
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? lounge access and good earn spend Ratio.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often -- FRA/BRU/CPH-BKK , BKK-HKT
(7) Preferred Airlines -- TG and SQ/LX/LH
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Both but largely pleasure and often we are 2 adults + 3 children ( important when it Comes to availability in premium cabins )

*** we have over 2 Mio BA AVIOS , already burned more than 1 MIO, but Iam not going to be a BA Gold longer, for our flyingpattern it's not worth. BA LHR-BKK never has 4 or 5 seats in Business/Award available. And even the times we are only 2 Pax I never find availability, already could not use my 2for1.

Actually we are members with US/DM ( also Change to oneworld
TG has a very bad earn spend Ratio
and AVIANCA LM not let you earn Status if you not fly them

Continue with UA or someone else?
 

I am currently a UA 1k and have been for several years. However, I currently live in Singapore (previously in the Los Angeles area) and will be in Singapore for another 2-4 years. I am currently UA 1k but given the upcoming devaluation and that I generally don't fly UA given their indifferent service wondering if there is an alternative for me. I am still pretty far from lifetime UA status (only ~180k miles), so that isn't a motivation to stick to UA either. Besides I don't fly UA itself really - in 2013 just did one round-trip in J to the US from SIN (1 trip on SQ and 2 trips on CX). I don't use the UA upgrades (only used 2 on the previously mentioned trip to upgrade to F) and typically just swap them on CC.

If US were not merging with AA, I of course had an obvious alternative program. I am an American and will move back to the US eventually, so have a slight preference for a US friendly program. But hopefully I will not fly as much when I move back to the US and can just stick to earning EXP on AA, if that even.

(1) What is your home airport? SIN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Mostly Y within Asia and J to the US 2-3 times a year
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? ~250k, of which ~100k on *A (mostly SQ)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? UA 1K
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Good earning and redemption ratio is #1 given that other things are mostly moot for me (upgrades on SQ don't exist, lounge access is a given the amount I fly, etc)
(6) Which routes do you fly most often - mostly within Asia (primarily to India, Australia, Hong Kong) and 2-4 times a year to the US. I plan to put at least 100k miles on AA when flying QF, MH, to keep my EXP status.
(7) Preferred Airlines - SQ because of the convenience of non-stops from Singapore but as much as possible I do OneWorld. However, I will for sure fly 100k miles on *A.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work - and yes, I can pick my airlines. Class of service needs to be economy within Asia except I can pull-off premium economy (doesn't apply to SQ) to Australia, China, etc.

I don't want to do SQ KF given the high redemption costs. My typical redemption for now is for travel for the family within Asia (typically within a 4-5 hour flight of Singapore). Any other suggestion or is SQ the best alternative for me?

Hi all,

After looking at the sites of the different programs, my head is buzzing and I now turn to you for some idea's.

I'm an (international) student from the Netherlands, studying in the US, and flying home once a year. I might fly within the US 2-3 times a year, for which flights I'd hope to get discount (or get 'em for free).

Basically, I thought I'd get a membership card of one airline per alliance - just in case. Last time I flew SkyTeam to and from Europe, next time I'll fly BA (was the cheapest..), etc.

The question I have is: which FFPs to chose?

(1) What is your home airport? (RST - LSE [will change to CHO in a year or two]; AMS)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Cheapest possible (economy)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? <25K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Nope (FlyingBlue Ivory)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Free flights or discount on them.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc). US Domestic, with one regular US-Amsterdam
(7) Preferred Airlines - none
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure. Choice is mine.

I know that I really am an Infrequent traveler; yet, I hope to be able to get something out of a program :) Thanks heaps for your advice!

My parents are 65+ and are traveling in C TLV-IST-EZE;GRU-IST-TLV. They travel rarely (~once a year or two), so I'm looking for a *A program with good redemption, and especially allowing to combine two pax on one account.

(1) What is your home airport? TLV
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? cheap Y or C
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 15k miles in C once (each), but mostly 3.5k miles every 1-2 years.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? No status.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Long expiry time and reward availability. Ideally, be able to get a ticket from TLV to Europe of two after the one flight to EZE.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often -- TLV-BER or general leisure travel to Europe.
(7) Preferred Airlines -- No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? All travel is for pleasure or to visit family

(1) What is your home airport? CAI
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? <25K (egypt to europe most of the time)
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? no
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? good award redemption rates
(6) Which routes do you fly most often star alliance most of the time turkish airlines-klm-egyptair-kuwait air-etihad
(7) Preferred Airlines -star alliance-turkish air- gulf air
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? usualy pleasure

i am new to the idea of frequent flier programs, and i dont know what applies here in egypt, i have ben searching online but data is realy little, i want to know what are the award programs that i can actually participate and gain miles by other means that flying (like for example credite card usage) here in egypt, and what offers what, which is better, who offers better sign-up bonus and annual fees ?

thanks alot :)

Flying alot in 2014, think I can make it high
 

Current miles balances:
EBB: 12,000
M&M: 8,500
MP: 300
Skymiles: 11,500
Flyingblue: 15,000
(none of these appear to be MQMs)

I am going to fly a decent amount for work in 2014, and thought I'd look into establishing myself firmly in one program. It's unknown how much I will fly in 2015, but in all likelihood 25-40% of what I will fly this year. (the numbers below are based on this year's expected travels).

(1) What is your home airport? HNL :D
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y, T, and other discounted econ
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 76000 in 2014.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? M&M Silver, a bonus I got, not accrued by miles
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? upgrades
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? 25% US domestic, 35% trans-pacific (Australia, NZ, Japan), 40% trans-atlantic (Norway and Germany).
(7) Preferred Airlines Not really
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Mixed, but most of these are for work. I can choose airlines on international routes, but will only be reimbursed for cheapest tickets. Domestic routes have to be booked through UA due to our corporate discount

I calculated that, depending on when my various flights are, if I add a 3000 or 4000 mile run, I can get to 1K on MP. However, I see that there are some spending requirements as well. I will most likely not meet these, but I am a Norwegian citizen, so it appears as if I can get away with it with my international address?

There are some good and some bad reasons for why my balances are what they are. I don't suppose there are any clever ways of getting any of these matched?

Mahalo for any tips :)

I posted here previously & got no help but thought I'd share what I decided to do. I think I'm in a common boat: business traveler trying to get miles for free economy vacations. Here was my situation:

(1) Home: IAD/DCA
(2) Fare types: cheap economy for travel, business for work
(3) Miles/year? 50k bus, 5-10 pleasure.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? economy availability for vacations, long-term lounge entry.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often -- IAD-ADD-DAR [Tanzania]
(7) Preferred Airlines -- No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? I fly international business class for work, and want to use miles personal trips - 2-3 domestic and 1 international per year.

I fly Ethiopian about 5x per year in business class IAD-DAR, which racks up miles: but United has no bonus for ET flights, so I wanted to see other options. I don't know for how many years I travel, so I wanted to get status that would last for years after work stops paying for it.

What I decided to do:
One roundtrip ticket on ET got me instant Gold Status on Aegean, which gets me lounge access in US & abroad as long as active. All of my other miles on United still, because their award chart is at least hackable with stopovers & open jaws. Hope this helps someone: if others think this is a bad idea, say why for all of us!

- Home airport: BRU
- Destination: HAM
- Airline: Brussels Airlines
- Fare: €119 cheap, discounted economy (125 miles per flight - Which means milewise pretty much useless)
- Amount of direct BRU-HH flights: between 30 & 40

So I would actually need sth that works with the amount of flights, rather than the mileage

Good job!!

Difficult one
 

(1) What is your home airport? LHR or AMS
(2) Do you currently have any status? BA Blue
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? regular to full fare economy
(4) Which airlines/routes do you usually fly? Africa via BA, Air France, Ethiopian Airlines
(5) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 70-100k
(6) Do you mainly fly for work or for leisure? / Do you have any flexibility in choosing the airline/fare bucket etc.? Mostly work. Annual holiday to US or Europe.
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? Upgrades on int´l travel and easy award redemption

Currently living in UK and travelling monthly to Africa (at the moment Gabon but could be anywhere in Africa). Will be moving to Boston later in the year and main hub will probably be JFK.

Star Alliance
 

Any opinion one which is the best partner programme to join in the Star Alliance for points and upgrades?
Expecting to fly 70-100K miles/year mainly to Africa, initially from London, Amsterdam or Paris. Moving to Boston MA later in the year so then flying through JFK.

I would think UA, since you'll be in the US. While UA itself does not fly to Europe from BOS, its partners LX and LH have flights to ZRH, FRA and MUC from BOS.

Star Alliance
 

I am not sure what other airlines offer, but I am fully satisfied with United Airlines Mileage Plus Program. I do about 100K miles a year. Having put 100K almost every single year, this is what I get:

1. Platinum Status
2. 6 Domestic Upgrade Certficates
3. 6 Global Upgrade Certificates
4. Free drink coupons

I am not an efficient user of miles. I also forget to record a lot of miles when I use partner airlines like Thai, Shenzhen or Air China.

What Platinum status got me:

Automatic upgrades domestic and international about 60% of the time. Economy Plus seats. Priority boarding. Lounge use when traveling international. Last year I did not use any of my upgrade certificates. I did not realize they expire. So, I could have got more upgrades if I had used these. I only recently learned that they expire.

When there are delays, I call the platinum line right away, and they get me flights and always put me in front of the line for any waitlist.

Maybe others can tell you more. But I like my UA status and mileage program.