Status miles, the basics
 

I’m a bit confused. I’m off to Sydney from London flying Swiss and Singapore on a Lufthansa ticket and my Turkish frequent flyer programme.

I’m assuming that the status match calculator for difference classes is on the airline that you are flying on, not the code share. Is that correct?

To reach Elite status you need 40,000 Status miles. I’m guessing that theses are actual miles and are not affected by your class of travel. Is that correct? When you are progressing up through the tiers then your status boasts your Status miles. Correct?

Thanks In advance

Hello and welcome to FT!

Correct. Always the actual airline that you fly with. Codeshare is irrelvant.

No, it is not 40,000 flown miles. It is 40,000 status miles. Status miles depends on the booking class. Some booking classes do not any status miles. Some earn as much as 150%.

"When you are progressing up through the tiers then your status boasts your Status miles. Correct?" Sorry not understood. Status miles will boost your status.

If you have Elite status with TK, you earn a few more status miles on Business Class fares on TK metal... Otherwise no difference.

Codeshares are irrelevant. Operating carrier matters. But codeshares have a habit of booking into a different fare code, one that might not earn as many TK miles as you expected...

The maximum on M&S is 200% with F or A on LH, LX, SQ or TG.

I was checking TK's website. I think you earn "status miles" only when you fly on TK, not on SA member airlines. You get "miles" (not "status miles") on SA flights. The "status miles" are what you need to accrue to get you progress the TK elite levels. The miles are what you need to redeem for award tickets.

It would be MOST unusual to be unable to earn status miles on *A flights... There may be restrictions on how high one can go on TK's FF program without TK flights... and there may be LESS status miles earned on *A flights compared to TK flights. There may even be SOME fare classes on *A flights that may not earn anything (Status or redeemable) at ALL on TK's FF program. . Pretty sure however its not a BLANKET restriction.

P.S. For the OP.. There is most definitely a difference in Status miles awarded for different classes of travel!

This is totally incorrect.
You earn both bonus miles ( redeemable ) and status miles ( for status purposes ) on Star Alliance flights and Star Alliance flights do count towards elite status accrual.

If you look at TK's website on how to earn miles, only TK page mention status miles. You click on it's *A member airlines logo on TK's page, they all mention "miles", none of them mention "status miles". For example, Lufthansa page shows the % miles earned for various fare classes, but it does not mention "status miles", or, does it imply mile earned = status miles? can someone tell me how many "status miles" you earn on LH "Z" class? is it 135% of miles flown?
Perhaps TK's webpage is not reliable? and we just have to go by whatever people say.

If you know the booking class of the operating carrier just plug the details in here https://www.owenrudge.net/utils/starcalc/?p=TK and you'll see how many status miles you will get.

To my knowledge, there are no restrictions at all. You may earn all your status miles on other carriers to become a TK elite.

Perhaps on other FT boards the definitive experts are drowned out "by whatever people say".

On the TK board - being somewhat more obscure - there are a dozen or so people ISTFlyer for sure, perhaps yours truly, etc. who know what is actually going on.

For *A partner flights, the number of miles you earn = status miles.

The TK website does mention it by the way

I recommend against using this website as it contains bugs and cannot be relied on. Other miles calculating websites seems also to be problematic. My MO is to calculate miles with gcmap.com and lookup the multiplier on TK website. Manual but mostly accurate (as gcmap.com and TK don’t agree where IST is located).

EDIT: After more testing it, the bugs I found in the tool were not really bugs but my misunderstanding of the tool. I was quick to call judgement. Nevertheless, I prefer my MO due to:
1. It’s easier to enter local info on gcmap.com and see on the map that I haven’t made a mistake.
2. I usually figure out the mileage prior to buying a ticket. Therefore, I not only need the amount of miles for a specific class but see a broader view especially which booking class group give a larger multiplier. For example, having TK website propose a T class flight, I would not only like to know that T class gives 50% but also that the next class in line Q would give me 100%.

Yes. I just had LH D/Z class in July and they were 150%/135% in TK.
I found https://www.wheretocredit.com/ provides very accurate accrual% data.


TK Q class is the cheapest cabin class for 100% TK accrual. The next cheapest is E, and then the next is O.
For 50% accrual, it is T>V>L.

Nope. It actually T>L>V.