Hello all

I am a newbie to the FF world. But after a lot of reading on flyer talk and other sources I have finally narrowed my Star Alliance program down to two. These are Asiana and Turkish. However I cannot select one between these.

I am an Indian in US till the end of the year. After that I'll move back to India so I'll be mainly using AI and 9W for travel.

Expect to travel approximately 25k per year.

Will be travelling economy only.

Most important for me is award travel and upgrades. Status doesn't matter much.

Asiana:

Pros:
1. Two years to qualify for Gold/Silver. If you manage it early then status remains for the next two years plus promotional period.
2. US credit card. Will be in US for the next 3-4 months, might earn a few miles (not much).
3. Miles valid for 7 years.

Cons:
1. Only two partner airlines (Qatar, Etihad).
2. Partner airlines and other miles (credit cards, etc) dont count towards status.
3. Poor crediting on Air India flights.
4. Redemption is expensive.

Turkish:

Pros:
1. Good options for earning miles apart from *A. Good selection of car rentals and partner airlines (Jet Airways being the most important).
2. Redemption is cheap.

Cons:
1. Miles only valid for three years.
2. I have heard booking award travel is so difficult that I must forget it.


I have a US-India RTW coming up in May. After that I'll travel to India in December. Which means I'll have around 25k miles by December. This will be enough for me to get a silver status on either on the programs. I was planning to enroll in 9W's program but they need 30k for silver (or 22.5k in 6 months) so dropped the plan.

I was almost decided on OZ until I realized that redemption for AI is poor. My priority is award travel and if TK's award booking is so difficult then I am thinking about going ahead with OZ.

What are your suggestions?

Thank You!

Go with TK:

http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-in...ssic-plus-card

I'm having trouble following when you say redemption value with OZ miles on AI is poor. In theory, all *A partners have the same inventory for redemption, so doesn't matter which program you go with.

As for upgrades, basically at the level you're planning to achieve, it'll be nearly zero on both programs and you wouldn't be *G so also zero on partner flights.

I'd closely compare award charts for regions relevant to you, flexibility of changing award bookings, cost (or lack thereof) of changing award bookings, and availability of one way awards if comparing two programs that I was going to utilize for 25k a year.

@djjjaguar64: Thank You. Any reasons why I should select it over Asiana? The miles expire in 3 years thing is discouraging me from joining.

@dvs7310: Sorry for the confusion. I was talking about upgrades paid for by miles.

The AI crediting on L,U,T,S,E classes is 0 for OZ while TK atleast allows 50%.

The redemption rates are also less for TK. An India-US business class seat costs 105,000 on TK while it cost 150,000 miles on OZ.

But reading through the forums I feel that booking award tickets using TK miles is really difficult (trouble with the call centre, going to nearest TK office, etc). So I am confused whether to go ahead with TK or not.

If you're not crediting to the program where you intend to redeem rewards then mostly just forget about that option. The *A upgrade program is very expensive and if you're only flying ~25k miles annually you won't have enough points for both upgrades and award travel.

It's 10 years validity for Asiana miles, 12 if you get Diamond (*G).

I'd stick with UA. Better online access, earnings will be the old-style way since you live outside the US, and lots of flexibility.

If your primary goal is redemptions with AI, I'd just stick with AI though. No matter how bad the program, internal redemptions are always easier.

-G