Other frequent flyer programmes

[Wollhouse]

Im interested in which programmes other flyers are choosing to join/accumulate miles etc. I have 3 BA 241 vouchers and Avios but BA has pulled their planes to BKK so I’m unable to use the vouchers to there which is frustrating. The whole VTL issue means I need a single ticket at the moment but hopefully that will change soon. And finding availability ANYWHERE with BA still doesn’t seem very easy. With the new ability to earn Avios with Qatar, I’m wondering if I’d be better crediting flights to my Qatar miles account rather than my BA account. The BA 241 is a great carrot, but if I’m unable to actually use it, I’m wondering if other posters feel there is a better place to start to try to build status? I’m BA silver, but wondering how airlines like KLM etc stack up. It’s all very well collecting miles but how do other airlines compare in terms of ease of finding reward seats, changing flight dates etc? Interested to see what others think as I’ve basically been very loyal to BA but am sure others have experience of other loyalty programmes. TIA

[Jacob]

I’m curious to know why you think it’d be better to credit to Qatar? Given QR is an oneworld member too and with the option to move avios between BA and QR (hopefully in a foreseeable future) I don’t see any added benefit? If anything I’d personally find it more difficult to fly the required segments on QR than on BA to gain/renew status.

(sorry, nothing to add on the other alliances – I tried Miles&More for a while but often the convenience of BA/OW won – really depends what continents/direction you travel most often)

[masaccio]

Aside from @Jacob’s excellent point, where in the world do you like to travel to and how many stops wlll you put up with to fly business class? Personally I look at Qatar offers ex-EU unfavourably, for example, as I really don’t fancy 3 or even 4 flights to get to a destination. That’s especially true for long haul holidays of a week. With BA I can be in the Caribbean in 9 hours, or 14 hours door-to-door.

[Wollhouse]

Sorry, yes key info! I’m based midway between Edinburgh or Newcastle so any BA flight usually requires a transit in London. Long haul to BKK mainly although twice a year to Florida. I was thinking about crediting to Qatar as then I would perhaps have miles, tier points with them which would allow me to book reward flights with them which might be more favourable/greater perks/ticket options than booking Qatar on BA site??? Wondering IF they had better availability. I guess I’m really asking if people have found other airline loyalty programmes to have better availability for redemption as I seem to be really struggling with BA at the moment. Thanks

[masaccio]

Wollhouse wrote:

Sorry, yes key info! I’m based midway between Edinburgh or Newcastle so any BA flight usually requires a transit in London. Long haul to BKK mainly although twice a year to Florida.

Flight Connections could be a useful tool in that you can just put in EDI-BKK and see which airports are stopovers. Qatar in OneWorld is the obvious one but if your goal is ‘only’ equivalent of BA Silver, how about something different like Star Alliance? I’ve often seen that their flights are cheaper than OneWorld from the UK. That gives you United to the US and Lufthansa to Asia.

[TheBlood]

I often toy with this idea and go back and forth with the pro’s and con’s. There is no doubt that BA’s service (on their metal and their telephone lines) has been a disaster recently, BUT, I am sat on a decent points haul and I’m thinking of going the other way (for GGL) in the hope that having lots of points AND availability (which I could then open up with jokers) would suit me. Granted, I am a high Amex spender and frequent flyer, so this recipe won’t work for everyone.

More relevant to your question, I have researched QR’s program and they don’t seem to particularly look after their members either. It’s a tough one. Had I seen the offer in December to buy Finnair’s top status (thereby making yourself OneWorld Emerald), I probably would have done that!

[Wollhouse]

Thanks all. Good to know about Qatar. And yea, I missed the finair offer too:( and fingers crossed on BA call centre. I’m in Thailand and they don’t have a local number so I an dreading the phone call to BA holidays to try and use a 241 voucher and redeem a credit! An expensive way to listen to rubbish music;)

[AJA]

I have membership of all three major alliances; OneWorld via BAEC & Aadvantage (from before the BA tie up and when you couldn’t earn Airmiles on AA flights, very useful for US internal redemptions though). For Star Alliance I have Miles and More via Lufthansa and only ever redeemed once for a flight to HAM. I dislike the 3 year hard expiry rule for non-status PAX. And most recently TAP because of their status match which I never got to use (any idea how to use 14400 points?). And Skyteam via AF/KLM, again never managed to redeem for anything and my points expired.

Of all of those I have found BAEC the easiest for redemptions though find Long haul increasingly difficult. I tend to book WTP and upgrade to CW for long haul although I am about to earn my first new style 2-4-1 so hope it will be easier to redeem. I do find short-haul redemption very easy though

BAEC is my 1st choice programme as a result although living in London makes it even easier as I don’t have the connection issues and can get to all London airports easily. I find it easier to maintain status too.

I don’t see the point of swapping to Qatar especially as they are going to adopt Avios so I think that will make redeeming on Qatar easier.

[Wollhouse]

Thanks AJA- good idea re WTP and upgrade. I will shortly have the new Barclays voucher too which, as a single person, is also handy. Fingers crossed BA puts their own tin onto BKK route soon. Again thanks to everyone for their answers. Guess my stubbornly sticking with BA isn’t such a bad strategy after all:)

[memesweeper]

You can credit to Qatar, try and earn status there rather than BA, and then transfer miles when you want to use a companion voucher. I doubt earning status is easier in Qatar than BA, however.

In terms of the other alliances I have a stack of points and some status with Singapore. This has been accumulated as the only way to get a premium seat on Singapore with miles is with their own miles. If I had no interest in this I might credit Star flights to United, as they don’t expire their miles (unlike Singapore and Lufthansa).