kittiyut

What routes & fare class have you been trying to use your GPUs?

You can extend those GPUs into April, if you maintain your 1K status, but you probably already know that.

FlyingBaker

I do MIA to TLV Business every 10 days. I got about 800K+ Amex MP each year. It seems to me that Star Alliance is the best path of all the groups, but then my question is: Does it pay to be loyal to UA or LH/LX or to no one.

Grateful for the help.

WineCountryUA

What is your preferred routing?

What are you looking for in elite benefits (not provided by flying business)?

What other factors are import to you?

FlyingBaker

UA routes seem to always be 1K-2K more expensive than LH/LX. Experience wise, I prefer flying LX/LH.

As far as elite benefits, I'm most interested in racking up miles to use for premium award travel. Therefor, award availability and flight changing flexibility is also important to me.

Other factors to consider, I will be doing some domestic traveling in the US.

jsloan

UA and LH run a joint venture across the Atlantic. You should see the same fares for both. If you're not, it's due to availability on the particular day you want to travel.

Neither of those programs are going to allow you to use Membership Rewards points. KrisFlyer (SQ) and ANA Mileage Club (NH) are MR partners.

If by "every 10 days" you mean ~36 roundtrips per year in paid business class, I'd expect that you should be able to earn UA Global Services or LH HON Circle, depending upon which airline you choose to fly. I would recommend trying to keep your actual flying on the airline whose program you choose (i.e., if you choose MileagePlus, fly UA; if you choose M&M, fly LH/LX), as only miles flown on that airline will qualify for GS/HON.

As far as redeemable miles go, I'm guessing that your best bet will be UA. After you reach 1K, you'll get 11 miles per dollar spent on UA flights, excluding taxes but including fuel surcharge. It appears that even HON Circle on LH only adds a 25% mileage bonus to the 50% class-of-service multiplier, so the UA raw values will likely be higher. However, you should probably look at the redemption chart to see how many miles you'd need for the awards you want before making a determination. Be aware that M&M charges the fuel surcharge on award tickets, whereas UA doesn't; that can easily add several hundred dollars to the cost of a redemption.

Award availability is going to be a wash, in my opinion. M&M would give you access to additional long-haul space on LH and LX -- LX won't open F awards at all to partners; MileagePlus Global Services members can convert upgrade space into award space or use upgrade certificates on award travel (e.g., economy saver award + RPU/GPU + upgrade inventory = business class on UA metal, for GS only). Considering how limited UA premium cabin award inventory tends to be, you can think of that as equivalent to LH's benefit.

Finally, if your domestic travel is also going to be in first class, MileagePlus status won't make much of a difference, but if you plan to fly coach domestically, MileagePlus status will get you access to Economy Plus and the possibility of complimentary upgrades (CPU)*. M&M status won't get you E+ access or CPUs, but you would receive United Club access on domestic itineraries once you reach Senator (100K status miles) and you would likely earn more redeemable miles on discount economy fares*.

Hope this helps.

* Neither of these apply to Basic Economy purchases.

jmanirish

I'll offer a differing view to jsloan. HON Circle requires 600k. If I'm doing my math right, that will take 30 RT business if booked in Z or ~25 if booked in C/D/J. That means for a whole year, you won't see HON benefits.

I'd probably credit to UA regardless of whether flying UA or LH/LX. I'd fly LH but here are my thoughts:

LH: Will hit 1K quickly and start earning GPUs. Fairly easy upgrade from C>F on LH with GPUs. Downside is you'll forgo earning GS status on UA so your UA domestic flights will have less of a chance for upgrades (and other GS benefits which may/may not be of importance. The bigger downside is then your FRA-TLV flight will be in European C which is just economy with a blocked middle - not fun for that flight.

UA: Can earn GS status which will be largely meaningless for your MIA-EWR-TLV flights because you're already in business. Downside is you won't get the amazing LH first experience. You'll have to leave MIA earlier to connect to the EWR-TLV flight (one of which is the new 77W) but then you also get into TLV earlier.

Kacee

Taxes and fees are over $1100 for a TATL RT in J or F. Though availability is quite excellent.

I've found LH miles very difficult to use. They also have a 3 year hard expiration. Will wind up burning mine at <.5 cpm in LH's WorldShop my next pass through MUC.

jsloan

I agree with the calculation -- but the same is true for GS, and OP would reach either 1K or HON at about the same time. Either one is a nice intermediate plateau.

Yikes, that's even worse than I thought. I'd have a hard time paying $1100 for an award flight personally, but it's still better than paying for F out-of-pocket..

The 3 year expiration is waived for LH elite members. I definitely wouldn't want to be a non-elite in M&M.

Kacee

M&M is unbeatable if you want to fly LH/LX F on awards, and don't mind the hefty fees. It otherwise sucks compared to MP.

FlyingBaker

Just to clarify, I fly every 10 days MIA to TLV, which means 36 O/W or 18 R/T. From my calculation with M&M @ ~11K miles per O/W, I will have 308,000 miles/yr if pay cash for 14 R/T flights on LH/LX. Therefor, in two years, I should have HON.

The tricky thing with MilagePlus is the PQD of $12K/yr to reach 1K status. I'm having trouble finding availability for reasonably priced business from MIA to TLV on UA metal. It doesn't seem worth it to pay an extra $1K-$2K for a UA flight just to meet the PQD requirement?

jsloan

It won't take many RTs on UA to meet the PQD requirement, even if the rest are on LH. Furthermore, you can get PQDs for LH flights if they are booked on a United ticket (ticket number starting with 016). The easiest way to do that is to book via UA codeshares.

If UA is $1K-$2K more, it's likely due to tight inventory on the MIA-EWR leg. If your goal is to reach GS -- feasible at 18 RT/yr but you'd want nearly all of your travel to be on UA-operated flights -- you'd want to look at alternate airports or adding a stop. (I see plenty of flights at the same $3K roundtrip for LH and UA, but the UA flights all require an extra stop due to inventory constraints on the MIA-EWR segment). If you're satisfied with 1K, just book enough of the LH flights using their UA code to get to 12K PQD and be done with it. (Note that you do need 4 annual UA segments per year to get any elite status on UA).

chitownflyer

If crediting to Mileage Plus, you need 4 United flights, 100K PQMs, and $12K spend to earn 1K. United's Joint Venture with Lufthansa is so strong that you can even plate a United ticket on 016 stock with Lufthansa native flight numbers (LH 463) via United phone reservations, and you will earn the benefits of PQMs and PQDs to qualify for 1K status. The only downside is that only United flights( no codeshares or partner flights) count towards earning United Million Miler status.

jmanirish

Think you mean OP would hit 1K or senator at about the same time. While that's true, 1K would get him 6GPUs vs only 2 eVoucher upgrades on M&M. Plus he'd continue to get 2 more every 50 PQM.
The tough thing about GS is that since there's no published threshold, you can't get the status immediately. OP'd have to wait until early 2018 for it to take effect.

As I said, I'd stick with 1K on UA, but fly LH. I'd probably fly UA metal MIA-EWR-TLV on my first roundtrip to hit the 4 segments (especially given no GPUs yet to upgrade to LH first).

FlyingBaker

I appreciate all the insight.

So from what I hear, it seems I should do the following:

1) Stick w/ MileagePlus
2) Purchase tickets THROUGH United early to meet $12K PQD to get 1K asap
3) Rack up the MileagePlus miles at 11X with 1K
4) Forget about GS or HON because I'm moving metal too much and it ain't worth to intense loyalty.

With this, I will be flush with MileagePlus miles and low fuel charges on award tickets. But will I have success using these miles on long haul premium award tickets?

jmanirish

Yep. Going east from MIA for TATL, I'm seeing decent availability on SK through CPH or OSO in the coming weeks, and that's peak August European travel. Also some decent availability through through LIS on TP (on the lie flat A332). Even found MIA-ZRH on LX in business (10 Aug for example).

Going west for a TPAC should also have good availability, although you may end up in coach for the domestic connection (e.g., MIA-ORD/IAH/LAX/SFO)