EU-US

I need to pick a *A FFP to credit my upcoming trips to. I am reeling from trying to compare different *A programs with their complicated rules and poorly worded descriptions. Pretty much all the FFPs I checked so far had a deal breaker... is there any decent FFP left?

My upcoming trips (already booked but I didn't add FF numbers to any):

Dec 31-Jan 7 AMS-LAX in biz return, ticketed and flown on United (myself)
4 additional family members on the same flight, flying economy - I know United doesn't have family pooling of points but at least they have mileage transfer in case I am willing to pay for it.

Jan 23-Feb 4 AMS-BOM biz on Etihad

I have more flights during 2022, this is just the beginning. I expect to fly at least 40-60k miles during 2022.

So given these flights, and that my base is AMS, mostly fly EU-US and EU-Asia routes, can someone confirm or deny that crediting all of my flights to United would be a good choice? If not, is there a better option?

My main goal with a FFP is to earn *A upgrades. The last program I checked (Asiana) looked great, until I learned that point upgrades are pretty much limited to upgrading from B/Y, which makes them pretty much useless. I hope that's not a general rule in *A and some programs are better. I noticed that United has been trying really to hard to make it all but impossible for those who don't fly a lot of United metal to qualify for the higher elite tiers (with the dollar spend requirements). I like the idea of SWUs at their higher elite levels, but it seems like it's almost impossible to get there if you mostly fly other *A airlines.

Thank you!

Repooc17

UA's program is (almost) entirely revenue-based now.

UA"s program is also calendar based, so your AMS to LAX will go into your 2021 year; while your LAX to AMS will go toward 2022.

Your Etihad flights will NOT be eligible for UA crediting/qualification.

How much are you willing to spend in your 40-60K planned flown miles? Distance is almost a non-factor unless you fly loads? Will you commit to at least 15K USD (or more) of eligible fares to earn UA's top published tier?

WineCountryUA

In general, that is a no go.

Most *A carriers require high fares to use partner miles. And only a few carriers offer other non-cash upgrades methods. UA is fairly unique that UA Plus Points can be used on LH, NH and CM -- but not on cheap fares.

No longer true.
*A partner flights now can earn UA PQPs

TomMM

I have found the best strategy is to take advantage of buy-up offers.

AirbusFan2B

Would agree - they often come in at ~$800 ORD-EU/UK and vice versa.

EU-US

Thank you all for the answers. It seems like UA's FFP is not the best choice for me then. I am leaning towards Asiana at this point because they at least have family pooling, a 24 month qualification period that starts on the day you sign up, and decent milage redemption rates on most *A partners. It seems like mile upgrades are a lost cause, so I need to pick a different strategy.

mduell

That's a requirement for *A upgrades across the alliance, including with United.

EU-US

Sadly, I just learned that. Changing strategy - using miles for award tickets...

swgsword

ANA and SAS are other Star options that might be of interest where you can credit Etihad flights & pool points.

WineCountryUA

The general recommendation is earn status on the carrier you most fly where you get the most bang for your status.

Just realize partners only see some of the award availability and miss out on the award carriers hold back for their elites.

A Little Cow

Pretty much the two strategies for wanting to fly in Biz for cheap/"free" are:

1) Credit the airline you would fly the most anyway, gain high elite status, get upgrades on that airline (either complementary or with some instrument). There are generally no reliably good ways to get upgrades between airlines in a given alliance.

2) Credit the airline with the best mileage award charts, earn lots of miles via those credits (+ usually credit card offers and things like that), get an award ticket with the miles.

For both strategies, choosing the "best" program will depend a lot on where you are located, where you generally fly, how often you fly, and which flights you are most interested in flying in Biz. For the second strategy, it also matters a lot what country (or countries) you can get a credit card. United is a decent all around option for USA based fliers for the the second option due to the availability of credit card miles either with United branded cards or with Chase transfers. Depending on which routes you are most interested in, other programs might have better "sweet spots"; Virgin Atlantic for round trip ANA first class tickets, for example.

emcampbe

I’m not an expert at all the programs, but will chime in with my experience. With rare exceptions, I’ve always been under the impression that the best program is almost always going to be your ‘home carrier’ - by that, I mean, the one you fly most.

if you are AMS based, unless most of your trips are to/from the US (and maybe within N. America once you get there), UA probably isn’t going to be the most valuable program for you. You say you fly to the US and Asia - unless you fly so much that you can earn status on different carriers for your trips to those different continents, your best program is probably going to be an EU-based carrier that you can easily fly both east and west. If you want to stay in *A, that’s probably LH-group/M&M, or maybe TK, though to connect in IST everytime you want to go to North America is a bit of a PITA (though not without its advantages - if you have to be stuck with a long connection, there are far worse places than the TK lounge at IST). If you value nonstop, KLM might be the way to go (you would use DL for US trips if you travel beyond their US gateways). If you are flying Etihad on your trip to Asia next time, might want to see if they partner with other * programs - UA won’t credit it.

most programs have tightened up requirements to prevent folks from earning status when they rarely or almost never fly them - been going on on some level for probably close to 10 years. Airlines simply don’t want to pay for benefits for you when you aren’t flying with them, even when it’s within the alliance. UA is actually pretty minimal requiring only 4 segments no matter what status you earn. AC increased it for the higher levels, and IIRC, was almost half of the segments required for a given level last time I checked. A3, until a few years ago, was the go to program since earning status through them tended to be easier and didn’t require any A3 flown segments, but they eventually caught on and started requiring that.

jtet

Perhaps this is a discussion best suited for the sticky in the *A forum?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-alliance-413/

uanj

How much flying will you be doing in the US and on what type of ticket? If business, you have plenty of choices where to credit your miles. If you are flying on a Y ticket and you can reach Star Gold in United's program, you get free economy plus at time of booking. Star Silver on United Mileage Plus you get free economy plus at time of check in. You do not get these benefits if you are Star Gold or Silver on another Star mileage program.

EU-US

That makes sense, but the issue with my specific scenario is that I don't have "usual" flights and "usual" carriers. I travel to too many random places to stick with a single airline. Also, I am based close to AMS so KLM would make sense - except when I bought my most recent AMS-LAX return in biz, UA/LH were in the $3k range, and KLM was in the $7k range. Loyalty doesn't really pay off any more.