flyercity

I've been looking into getting back to Star Alliance Gold after a long travel hiatus. What is the easiest way to do it irrespective of home airport, preferred airline etc? In other words, it could be with any *A carrier and it could be achieved anywhere, eg there was once a quick way of getting OW sapphire by doing a certain island hopping tour on JL in Japan; there was a similar scheme for Aegean involving numerous roundtrips within Europe. From what I see the easiest would seem to be a couple of business class roundtrips with Asiana from US or Europe to Korea.

scubadu

I don't really have a solid answer to your question, but just important to recognize that Asiana is being acquired by Korean Air and will very likely be leaving Star Alliance for Sky Team at some point. It's been in the works for several years but it does appear to be getting close to finally occurring.

Source: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/asia...ge-status.html

Regards

flyercity

Thank you, that's very helpful and will further narrow the choices. Maybe Aegean after all even though, based on past experience, it seems to be frowned upon when presented at UA lounges lol.

paperwastage

Put $25k in united passplus flex, instant UA gold. $25k can be used on united or some of their preferred partner airlines (unsure if there's a destination restriction or $25k number went up, check thread).


United (UA) Pass Plus Secure/ Flex -- Benefits, Value, Questions .... [Consolidated].

Otherwise youll have to find a distance-base *G program, PE/J/F to get a good fare class and bonuses that could towards the *G threshold(some programs award bonus miles for J, but not towards status).

Asiana (OZ) , Air China still allows 40-50 qualifying flight segments to achieve *G (but note the warning about OZ leaving *G).segment only counys if flown on OZ plane, but I think airchina just needs it ti be on *alliance? $130 avg price per leg times 50 =$6000, can squeeze. Need maybe 5-6 days, 4-5 round-trips a day

SKT-DK

Also keep in mind that SK, with AF-KLM being part of the new owning consortium, will be leaving Star Alliance for SkyTeam - which, as someone who is lifetime *Gold on SK, I find extremely inconvenient

downinit

I already had *G with OZ, but due to the sale of the airline, I started looking elsewhere a couple years ago. Aegean and TK are the two most common recommendations other than OZ. IIRC, Aegean had some kind of requirement to fly on their own metal in order to most easily qualify/re-qualify. As there is zero chance of me doing that from LAX, I decided to go with TK. I was able to just barely get *G in the initial qualifying period and re-qualify in the first year after getting status. The downside is that TK M&S is a horrible program and my miles are practically worthless, especially after the recent devaluation. They also have some bad blood with LH,which makes earning on LH group flights a PITA.

cfischer

If you are willing to do ‘a couple business class r/ts’, why not spend $10k and UA*G? 2 trips @ $5k each and you are Gold

Xiaotung

If you can manage to take 6 x A3/OA flights, A3*G no doubt will be the easiest. Retaining it is even easier.

oliver2002

Spend 6000$ on Air India: https://www.airindia.com/in/en/flyin...rns/about.html