I am AA Plat and DL GM and currently have no affiliation to any star alliance program. My job is going to start making me use SA carriers for long-haul premium cabin trips, all full-fare. Given I have no status and no SA allegiance I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction.

Travel will mainly be US-ASIA/OZ/NZ and occasional Intra-ASIA travel all premiu cabin.

Thanks in Advance.

You will find the stickies in the *A forum very helpful!
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forum...ysprune=&f=413

You will find quite a few threads over there on choosing a FFP (with the usual answer being - It depends!)

Welcome to FT trik!

In premium cabin? BD or LH is your choice as you get 300% EQM for F, 200% EQM for C.

BMI would be the most generous in terms of mileage accrual and redemption levels for you.

Thanks for the replies.

Is there a way I can do some searching on which might be best (BD or LH)?

I tried the SA forum but the link that talks about this is not working any longer. Also tried to search but got a million threads with info not bearing to my needs.

For example, why would you choose BMI vs. LH?

Both give extra miles for premium cabins, but BMI gives extra bonus miles if you fly more than 55K EQM in a year. Your earning doubles, so from 2X for business and 3X for First to twice that. With LH, no matter how much you fly, it will still be 2X and 3X.

BMI requires less miles than LH for a number of awards.

BMI allows you to pay half as many miles + very reasonable cash payment when redeeming awards if you want. No such option with LH.

Trust me, I know the programs. For paid premium cabin Star travel, BMI is best from a miles standpoint.

but....How is BMI for accumulating non BIS miles?

I'm trying to decide between UA and BMI and wonder whether the possibility of earnning miles through partner promos might tip the scale in favor of UA?

I had posed this ? re: BMI partner promos in the BMI forum but so far no one has replied.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=694479

as always any insights are appreciated

Try looking in the BD or LH fora, for example:
Help please! BMI Diamond Club or Lufthansa Miles & More?

With a few exceptions like Hertz, BMI is not good for non UK people to earn partner miles.

IMO, the smart FTer will earn partner miles with several programs whenever an offer is good enough. When US offers 25K for CC sign-up, sign up. Book a free ticket with those miles and cancel the CC. Partner miles IMO need not be earned in your primary program. This way you will both earn far more free tickets and you will be able to redeem more often having more choices to redeem from. The more places you have miles for an award ticket the higher the probability you will be able to find peak saver availability.

If you fly SQ alot, then LH might make more sense.
On BD progeam, SQ F only earns 200%.

Thanks for confirming my initial impression.

[/QUOTE]Partner miles IMO need not be earned in your primary program. This way you will both earn far more free tickets and you will be able to redeem more often having more choices to redeem from. The more places you have miles for an award ticket the higher the probability you will be able to find peak saver availability.[/QUOTE]

Good point. Guess I'll have to go back and review BMI's reward charts to see what I can get for my LAX-SYD-NZ miles. (and possibly the NYC-LAX pre/post NZ run)

I'm not sure how much more often I'll be flying *A but with BMI's cash/miles option perhaps that won't be so much of an issue.

Even if I do go with BMI, off the top of my head I can think of an easy way to get 50K partner miles on UA which should be enough/or close enough to get a free ticket to somewhere.

thanks again for all your help

First, redeeming 2X on BD can be like redeeming 3X on LH when it comes to redemption levels.

Second, if you are flying SQ a LOT, you will be earning 4X on BD, not 2X.

AC offers the lowest threshold for Star Alliance Gold status, at 35,000 status miles.

But if flying F you earn 3X status miles with BMI. Not AC. Do the math.

I'll go ahead and move this to the *A forum.

Regards,

Flispide