Originally Posted by chillman1972

HI Kiwi flyer, thanks for the info. I am new to this site but it seems to have a lot of info that i need! I have a quesiton for you that maybe you can help me with? I live in London and travel a lot to East Coast USA, Europe, Asia. Where possible i fly AirNZ but clearly this is not often given my normal routes.

I have been using star alliance airlines and accumulating points on AirNZ points but I suspect I am not maximising the points/upgrades/benefits that i could earn. UA is the airline i fly the most, followed by LH, then BD, then probably NZ.

Do you have any suggestions on how best to approach this...is it as simple as to use US because that is the airline i fly the most? My objective is to maximise points usable for upgrades.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards, chillman1972

Originally Posted by Kiwi Flyer

Hi

It also depends on what class of travel and how you want to use the points. You mention wanting upgrades. Currently, with few exceptions, airlines only allow their own FFP members to upgrade (eg need SQ KrisFlyer miles to upgrade on SQ, NZ airpoints or vouchers to upgrade on NZ). However, there are plans to allow all *A FFP miles be used for upgrading across the *A. AFAIK no date has been confirmed for this.

Upgrading with miles tends to be quite expensive - almost, or in some cases more than, the cost of award in the higher class and sometimes not allowed from discounted fares. However there are other ways to upgrade on some FFPs - eg vouchers. More details in the "How to Upgrade on *A Carriers" thread linked in the opening post.

BTW This is a bit off-topic so I'll ask the moderator to move your post and any answers to a new thread.