SIA in W class - which program?
 

I'm flying LHR-SIN-DPS and back in W class. 15604 miles according to SIA.

I'm a non-status member of bmi Diamond Club (needing 9904 more status miles to re-acquire silver status) and a silver/frequent traveller level member of Lufthansa Miles & More (a long way off miles needed to renew).

According to their websites, bmi will award ZERO miles and Lufthansa only 50% of mileage, plus the 25% executive bonus.

Am I right in thinking that if I join KrisFlyer that I'd get 100% of mileage flown?

So, is it worth joining?

At the moment I've been getting 100% mileage (but not status) with bmi Diamond Club for heavily discounted economy trips on Virgin Atlantic - would that still happen via SIA KrisFlyer? Just trying to work out if the DPS miles might get marooned in yet another account!

Thanks!
Paul.

I am wondering why one would wanna be a member of THREE frequent flyer programs within *alliance if one was not doing enough travel to gain status on all three (or even one of them). If I was you I'd pick a program and stick with it. make sure you know what earns you how many miles and book accordingly to maximize the number of miles earned into that account. after all, what good is it to you if you earn 10,000 miles in each account but don't get anything in return from that. on top of not gaining any status - and hence missing out on the benfits - you're also spreading out your miles into different accounts and it will take you even longer to aquire enough for an upgrade or award travel.

as for this trip: crediting it to BMI doesn't make much sense since there is nothing to be credited. don't know how far along you are with your LH account and where you live (as that is important in how many miles you need to gain FTL) but maybe you wanna think about crediting this flight to your M&M account and do so with any upcoming trips for the remainder of the year as well and establish status there.

jsut my 2cents.

Are you looking at the earnings for flying SQ for those schemes, or just the earning for W when flying BD and LH only? I only ask for two reasons -
1) W class on LH (and M&M scheme carriers) only earns 50% when flying on LH and W on BD is one of those weird little fares that no longer earns.
2) When one of the partners pays say 50% on a certain fare bucket, it's generally a partner wide policy - not different between the partners. W on SQ should get you 100% mileage in any * FF scheme AFAIK - it's R G Q N T V type classes on SQ that are the no earners. I can't see why SQ would pay 0 for a W class flight to BD members but 50% to LH and then 100% in my host scheme as example.

Most of my travelling is with oneworld. BMI is my main Star Alliance account. I resurrected an old, and empty, Lufthansa account to take advantage of the Status Match promotion in early 2004 (at the time I already had earned status with BMI).

What I'm really hoping to clarify here - as the Diamond Club agent I got on the phone was totally useless - is whether W on SQ will qualify for any points in Diamond Club. I can certainly make use of just 15,000 in KrisFlyer (one-way within Asia for example), so I'm happy to join a third scheme rather than lose the points altogether.

By-the-way: W on BMI longhaul accrues at 100% she told me.

PhilH reported on this a while back in the SQ forum. Here is his post.

If you travel infrequently on *A airlines, I wouldn't advise depositing miles into KrisFlyer. Miles expire after 3 years, and redemption rates (apart from upgrades on SQ) are relatively high.

I don't want to advertise my own thread here that much :D but have a look here and you will find links to all major *Alliance airlines and which class earns how many points in each FF program. For BMI use this link and you will see that SQ in W class earns 100% miles. Hope that helps...

Thanks for all your help... it seems more promising than I thought! I had been confused by the bmi website - using their calculator and selecting Singapore Airlines as the partner airline and LHR-SIN as the route, says:
The link in that text, which lists longhaul W as 1x mileage, appears to be for bmi flights (only). Hence my doubt and my original post!

That said, seeing as SQ definitely operate a first class cabin on LHR-SIN, the bmi website would appear to be talking rubbish!

I got 100% credit for SQ W fares with LH M&M for what it's worth. No 25% bonus for FTL, SEN, and HON (50%) though. BMI should be the same as it matters what SQ grants.

Cheers ...

W fares are 100% earning on UA, and I would presume BD as well. Remember all W fares are not the same. A SQ W fare is a far different beast to a BD W fare... so try to not get confused.

Why not just phone up BD and ask them to clarify? I am fairly certain you will be fine on the W fare, and I suspect it would be best to credit it to BD to get your status back (if that;s what you care about). If not, put it in the account you intend to redeem from (so the one with the most miles in it - which may well be BD). The only reason to open a KF account and deposit there is if you wanted to fly SQ again and try for an upgrade...