Hi all,

I'm trying to plan for the long game and decide which airline to stack my lifetime *A points. From what I've seen, United Airlines has the best lifetime program but I don't always fly UA. I travel a lot for work and always pay for the cheapest flight so UA is out for me, I'd need a program that accepts all *A flights.

Perks that are important to me: I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card which means lounge access isn't a real perk anymore thanks to Priority Pass. I'm looking more for things like complimentary seat upgrades, free flight tickets, and complimentary companion status (like the one UA has).

Travel behavior: I do a lot of transpacific flights between the US, Asia and Europe. My travel agents would sometimes get me promo tickets so ticket classes are all over the place but I usually fly Premium Economy or Business. For *A I usually take: Eva, Asiana, ANA, Air Canada and Lufthansa.

Considering all that, I've narrowed down the programs to either Asiana or ANA... Neither seems to be appealing to me, is there something I'm missing here?

I'm also a bit confused about ANA's million miler program. If you're a million miler, do you just become a MM by itself or do you also get Diamond for life?

TIA for the help!

-FB

Frequent flyer programs are for the short - medium term. Trying / hoping for lifetime status from zero is a pointless exercise. In the medium - long term the ffp's will devalue and change the rules.

An increasing number of ffp's give little or nil ff miles for low priced tickets. That trend will continue. More ffp's are moving to a revenue based system. If you are flying high cost business or first class fares a little different.

The days of "complimentary seat upgrades (long haul), free flight tickets", and to a lesser extent "complimentary companion status" are long gone (~ a decade ago). Some airline-ffp's have complimentary seat upgrades for short haul.
USA based ffp's have been (and still are) more generous with perks than non USA based ffp's.

General FFP:- Which Frequent Flyer Program to Join? Help Is Here!

Star Alliance: Need advice on which Star Alliance FF scheme to join? - please post here

Be mindful of expiry Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire. Click to open the wiki.

www.wheretocredit.com

I see those types of perks are scarce but I wouldn't say they're completely gone. From what I've seen UA still offers complimentary companion status match and Delta has unlimited complimentary seat upgrades. They're the exception though. I do agree FFPs are usually short-term plays due to mileage expiry and possible rule changes but since I always use up my points anyways before their expiration it's not a major concern. So now that the short-term mileage points are taken care of I'm trying to figure out where to stack the long term lifetime mileage aspect of it. Non US based FFPs do look more generous than US based ones generally I agree.

On long haul flights, where a better seat is a definite advantage??
Short flights, in say a B737/A320, less of a improvement.
Yep: that bus left a looooong time ago

Sounds like it. So what's the next best option? Where would you concentrate your miles?

I'm a little unsure why you are ruling out UA? You can credit every Star Alliance flight that's in a booking class that they give credit for. UA's program is significantly more generous than most for cheap fares, at least you usually get something, where many other *A programs have loads of 0% credit fares on partners. Your one and only negative would be the PQDs which as you have noted do not credit for *A partner flights, but are you flying enough to make status anyway if PQDs were not a thing?

The other one with a quite achievable lifetime status is OZ, however I do not believe they extend the benefit to spouses.

In the end, if you really want to try for lifetime status, you should probably make a concerted effort to fly UA for your overseas flights, but even if you make Gold every year, it's a 20 year effort. Who knows what the landscape is going to look like in 20 years from now. As for PQD to reach Gold on UA, it's just a $6 annual spend which you'd easily have if you put just a few of your overseas trips on UA metal. You can also get the Chase credit card and spend enough to get the PQD waived (up to Platinum).

[QUOTE=FlyBruin;31252588]Hi all,

I'm trying to plan for the long game and decide which airline to stack my lifetime *A points. From what I've seen, United Airlines has the best lifetime program but I don't always fly UA. I travel a lot for work and always pay for the cheapest flight so UA is out for me, I'd need a program that accepts all *A flights.
TIA for the help!-FB[/QUOTE

I do not understand your point? UA is out for you because you always pay the cheapest flight? With respect, UA has the cheapest flights to/from Asia. Where exactly do you live that this is not the case? Kalamazoo?? BTW, UA automatically gives me preferred PE seating. Does AC do that for you?

I fly enough to make *A Gold, usually on Lufthansa or Eva. You're right I can stack the miles in UA and go for the tiers there even if I wasn't flying UA. I was just considering the "wasted" PQDs that won't get credited into the lifetime program but I guess it's a give and take. Oz lifetime program doesn't appeal to me at all.

In the past I always considered the most direct flight and cheapest flight, never really focused on the FFP aspect so this is all a bit new to me. Thanks.

PQDs are irrelevant for lifetime status only your annual status, so don't worry about that. In the current United program, you have 3 important numbers (for US residents, foreign residents don't have PQDs).

PQD = Premier Qualifying Dollars - you need a minimum as a US resident depending upon the level you wish to achieve. Only earned on UA flights OR flights ticketed by UA on 016 ticket stock (you can get LH and NH flights ticketed this way as well as several other *A carriers but this does assume you can book yourself and get reimbursement rather than being forced to use the corporate travel agent, as they'll more likely take the simplest route and ticket on the other carrier's stock)

PQM = Premier Qualifying Miles - These are awarded for all qualifying Star Alliance travel, regardless of carrier, as long as it's a qualifying fare class. See UA's award charts for various airlines for details. for example all LH fares earn 100% or more PQMs - These are the miles that qualify you for various UA status levels, 25k Silver, 50k, Gold, 75k Platinum, and 100k 1K (together with the appropriate PQD for each level)

RDM = Redeemable Miles - these are the miles you seen in your mileage balance that you can spend on award flights for UA or other Star Alliance carriers.

So United may be a fine program for you and I'd say if anyone is still going to have a lifetime status in a decade, it's as likely to be them as anyone else.

You forgot about BiS, which are the "butt-in-seat" miles that count for lifetime status.

Sorry for late response, I got hit with the 5 posts per 24 hr limit....

I split majority of my time between LAX, YVR, MUN and CGK. The rest are all over the place. My travel agent in Asia, for whatever reason, usually has promotion fares for BR, CI, and CX but not UA that's why I rarely fly them for my Asia flights. I usually fly PE and above for my long haul flights so I never considered the PE seating perks but that's a good point. I will probably try to focus more on UA flights now, thanks!

Good point. Will look to a more stable airline.

Yeah it looks like UA is the program to focus on for now. Thanks so much for the detailed explanation!

Keep in mind too what mahasamatman said as well, which I had forgotten about. For some reason I was thinking UA used the PQM multiplier for Lifetime status, but indeed they do not.
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly.../lifetime.html
So for lifetime counter you'll only see your actual flight distance rather than 150% for the business fares which earn the multiplier.

I used to be similar like you, mostly on *A partners so for several years even though I had the annual status, my lifetime balance was barely moving, but for the last 2-3 years I've been probably 90% on UA metal.

UA only counts BIS (butt in seat) on United metal for lifetime miles

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly.../lifetime.html

For yearly status, non-United flights would count towards PQM for that year (and I assume you have pqd waived, or enough to qualify for pqd)