EDI (or UK) based fliers with Star Alliance Gold - is it worth it?
 

I have the top tier status with Air Canada and am trying to choose between two status benefits for 2024: gifting my spouse Air Canada 50k status, which includes Star Alliance Gold, or earning double Aeroplan points on AC flights for the next year. We are normally in Canada but will spend about 6 months in Edinburgh in 2024 and I'm hoping to get a sense of how useful *A Gold is for someone in the UK. We would make a few trips from Edinburgh to the continent with two kids, say maybe 3 to 5? I'm trying to figure out whether it would make sense to fly *A (and benefit from the status) vs just booking with other airlines.

It looks like to get most places in Europe on *A, you have to connect in FRA or another hub city, versus a direct flight to Berlin or Rome or Paris or Tenerife etc on a discount airline. That is a major negative especially for weekend trips. Another con is that although each of the parents would have fast track security, the kids wouldn't, so presumably none of us would get to use it. (Kids will be 7 and 9 - not sure if there is regular enough access to family lines or if priority security would let us through anyway. I know in EDI they scan boarding passes so presumably we'd get rejected.)

The main benefits of sticking with *A would be:

- civilized boarding procedures (I hope -- I hate those Ryanair buses and endless queues!)
- access to good lounges both upon departing EDI and during connections
- not having to worry about all the bag fees etc that come with cheap airlines, since we could check bags if needed (we tend to travel light)

One thing I'm not sure about is schedule convenience, e.g., with young kids there's no way I'm doing a 6am departure or a late night arrival, that kind of thing. I know sometimes the cheap airlines have crazy inconvenient times but am not sure how pervasive that is.

Although I'm mostly hoping to get a sense of whether folks with *A Gold status in the UK find it useful for family holidays, or just find themselves booking other carriers, I should say that if we fly *A the family would fly on my aeroplan points and my status gets free cancellations/changes, which is a major benefit. So I have some incentive to book *A anyway, aside from normal Star Gold benefits.

anyone been in a similar situation and have advice?


-

Edi is not a hub for any of the alliances so for continental europe it will inviove connections on any of those carriersunless flying to their hubs (ba lhr, lh fra, muc, klm ams, af cdg)
.if you want direct for edi its low cost carriers

Currently LH has 2 departures a day from edi to fra, 6am ish and 12:40ish. Arrivals at midday and 11pm ish.
One flight a week edi to muc

Edleweiss Air has flight to Zurich, but less than one flight a day. These are eligible fir *A if you book the LX flight number from the SWISS website.

Frequency may increase slightly in the summer, another deprature from edi around 6pm.

Munich flights frequency also increases but not to daily.

SAS may gave options. TK too, but fir connecting into mainland europe its 4 hours to IST the 2 to 3 hours back again, not ideal forca weekend away

So *A options are limited.

I expect you will look at timings of low cost v the connecting fligjts. Sometimes tou will decide just to go direct, other times on LCC. With EDI i sometimes find I fly one low coat carrier out and a different one back depending on the timings.

i will add the "A does not have its own lounge in EDI. LH use the Aspire lounge.

*G is very useful for someone who would use LHR frequently.

The problem is from EDI you have no good way to get to LHR, with no domestic *A flights you'll have to allow 7-8 hours for train or 4-5 hours for a BA flight.

As you say, to stick with *A you're likely to be seeing FRA a lot and I hate FRA.

Regarding priority security, while I've only used EDI once since before covid, the priority queue seemed to be the same as the family queue. Anyway there's no issue if both parents will be *G.

I think you will have to go with easyJet etc if there is a direct option to where you want to go. Pay for the extras if necessary. Use *A when there is a sensible schedule. Otherwise you will end up letting the airline determine your destination - which is fine if you are aware that is what you're doing.

Turkish and SAS also serve Edinburgh, offering Stockholm and Istanbul as hubs.

SAS is expected to switch to Skyteam soon, though, as part of the rescue package by the consortium including the AFKL group a few months ago.

As a former *A gold card holder, in the UK, I think it became considerably less useful when LH dumped BMI, leaving the UK without *A connections from the regional airports to LHR. One World and (possibly) Sky Team make more sense unless frequently going to places effectively owned by LH.

Thanks everyone. Yeah, it's really hard to see a reason to stick with Star Alliance if we're in Edinburgh for short-haul. E.g. 100 destinations reachable by direct flight with Ryanair and Easyjet vs something like 5 on Star Alliance. I wonder how hard it is to make those airlines more tolerable. Maybe stick with Easyjet and just get Easyjet Plus for security/better seats/less stress about baggage, plus Amex Platinum cards for lounge access? How do UK-based folks tend to access lounges if they're not flying on mainline carriers with status?

*A Gold works very well for me but I am based in London and generally fly on routes which *A serve directly. And, even though I have status on BA, I dislike them intensely and dread my trips with them.

priority pass

And to be honest, once on the plane there is not a lot of difference between LCC carriers and european Y

I have no problem with FR or U2 on european short haul

With Manchester now as my closest airport, I have access to a number of Star hubs: ARN, ATH, BRU, CPH, FRA, IST, LIS, MUC, OSL, SIN, VIE and ZRH. Fares with Star can be considerably cheaper than BA's through LHR

One or two of MAN's Star connections are not daily, and some others might disappear; but, still, it beats Oneworld in terms of the numbers of hub connections.

Lounge access is a problem without status or having paid specifically to use it. Priority Pass has become less useful as you are lowest priority when the lounge is busy. Don't expect to get into lounges at LGW or LHR with PP.

Priority Pass now allows you to pre-book visits to some lounges*. Some other lounges (e.g. The Escape Lounge at MAN) now have pre-booking sites specifically for Priority and Dragon Pass holders. Don't expect to get into any lounge with a Priority Pass before the morning flights to the US have left. Concerning The Escape Lounge, I could not pre-book due to no slots available for Priority Pass holders.

For significant hubs and regional airports with lots of flights to the US and the Middle East, Priority Pass remains pretty useless.

* Through the Priority Pass app, I was able to pre-book the Aspire Lounge, MAN T2, on Sunday 17th December. The booking fee was £6.

Before I had AC status (early 2023) I had no problem using the Priority Pass that comes with my Platinum Amex to access to Edinburgh lounge for morning flights. I now use access the same lounge mornings (Friday or Saturday morning) through AC status and it never seems overly busy. I wonder how hard it is to use PP on the continent though?

I had mixed results at Gatwick, sometimes getting in no problem and sometimes being turned away. That was January to April though.

No problems using PP at GLA, KRK, TLL, PRG, JNB, WAW, DOH, DXB

I’d say the U.K. is the outlier for having capacity controls with PP. Never turned away elsewhere.