Need advice from expert travelers. Here's the deal: will be flying several times BOS-ZRH in 2014. speed and price are important, so will most likely be the direct flight and economy fare (usually non-refundable). there's only one non-stop flight like that: operated by swiss, but united also has a flight number for that flight.

with that in mind, what's the best mileage account to post the miles? they will almost certainly be redeemed to the same flight and the same category (for the mrs.). so it'll be a swiss metal flight between us and europe. and for the redemption, naturally, no fuel surcharge fees.

i checked and miles&more offers only half of the miles of united this year. so it seems i should post them to mileageplus? but then I won't get status with them, correct? since I need minimum 4 segments on united metal flights. it's not a deal breaker, but would be nice if that was also an option.

any other program worth considering: aeroplan, ana, etc.?

You can also bypass the 4 segment requirement by getting a UA CC.

However, you still have the PQD issue. If you buy them as UA tickets, you can credit them to UA and get PQD credit.

thanks for the tip! wasn't planning on new cc apps this year, but might have to reconsider.

seems like mileageplus is the way to go?

It depends on how much you would spend on the CC, and/or whether or not you could book the tickets on UA stock.

if i buy the united flight (even though it's all the same flight), then i'll get a "016" ticket. would that satisfy pqd?

the spend on cc is whole another issue. especially with time away overseas.

If you can make the spend and buy via united.com (or 016) then it would be worth it IMO. Otherwise, i'd look at some other *A.

is there a better alternative on *A? which will also have non-YQ redemption for swiss metal flight.

If you fly LX, but the ticket is issued by UA (buy it on UA's website) you'll earn PQDs. You'd have to spend $25k on the credit card to get the PQD waiver.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...alify.aspx#pqd

You also need to make sure that the LX fare your ticket is going into is eligible to earn miles. I'm not sure if all the TATL fare buckets earn miles, but I've flown intra-European flights that didn't qualify

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Mar...spx?ItemId=297

Be very careful with the booking classes.

The cheapest class published for that route is L. L earns 25% (933 per segment) on M&M but 0 on MileagePlus. Interestingly, L earns 50% (1867 per segment) on A3, so if you fly a lot of L you may want to credit to A3.

You say that miles&more offers only half of the miles of united this year. That happens only for classes Q/S/V/W, and those are at least $200 more expensive than L. Are you planning on flying mostly Q/S/V/W?

you're absolutely right. intra-europe never gets mils on mileageplus. transatlantic has always qualified.

seems like without any status any other *A (miles&more, ana, aeroplan) gives 50% miles. except for mileageplus, which is 100%. so either stick with another *A and grind it out till status, while wasting miles, or go with mileageplus, get the full miles, and worry about status other ways.

i think mileageplus wins either way.

good point! i mostly get tix 1-2 weeks in advance, and at that time the cheapest have usually been s, w, or t. will have to be careful for the L.