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I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions to help me decide. I am now back travelling all over the globe after a 10 year hiatus. I currently have BA Silver status which is at around the 2700 tier points level. I had travelled out to UAE with BA a few times towards the end of last year and to be honest the planes/comfort level were very ‘tired’ and there always seemed to be an issue with a gate being assigned to the plane on its return to Heathrow. I will however say that the staff were great.
I then recently flew to China with Cathay Pacific just to compare the Business Class product. It was good, but in my mind it was not good enough to consider leaving BA. In a few weeks time I am travelling to Korea and will be flying Qatar Airways. I am have recently joined their Privilege Club loyalty program. This is where I am now in two minds. At 2700 tier points with BA, I would imagine that it will be quite a trek to get to 20000 points to get to Gold Level, whereas with Qatar Airways it amounts to 4 long haul business class fares.
I will still be using BA flights for my European trips, but wonder if it is worth using both loyalty programs, or just use BA flights for the short haul stuff, then Cathay/Qatar/American for the long haul stuff, whilst presenting those airlines with my BA membership number.
Any suggestions or recommendations would be really welcome. Many thanks in advance
RonHi Ron and welcome to HfP.
I hear about QR plane swaps which can mean a different J class seat, perhaps consider if this would be disappointing if it happened to you.BA’s 20,000 now for Gold status is so ridiculous i’d forget about the 2700 so far achieved and walk away to build status with another program. Your avios you can save by porting them to Finnair, Qatar, Aer Lingus and there’s no current urgency about that till you’re ready.
Depending which destinations your longhaul flights are to, those still thinking wihin OneWorld here are often recommending the Matt’s Planet videos on Qatar and Finnair in order to decide.
Finnair may work well – there’s a current thread here on HfP – but it does depend on your destinations.
Aer Lingus uses avios but is not OneWorld. Though for some strange reason it retains a back door link with Star Alliance through its link with United.
It’s not their fault but I’d not go in with CX Asia Miles as a main program for now due to the political factors still developing and we don’t know if those are going to be positive or negative.
Alaskan might work for some as they are integrating into OneWorld. So far they have kept some interesting linkups.
I’d work out for now which of QR or AY is going to give me what I am looking for status? earnings? for about the next year. If I don’t need avios I’d seriously consider Alaskan as a very reasonable program for earnings, status and burning.
Other than that, after doing a ‘bridge’ in a different OneWorld program than BA, for a year or not much more, as there’s a level of familiarity and you currently still probably have some investment eg held avios, in OneWorld, if I’m really travelling all over the world I’d actually consider Star Alliance to be better than OneWorld. Turkish or Aegean might give you a start when you’re ready, now Asiana is gone.
We haven’t had time to look at Oman Air but they could be worth keeping an eye on.
And I’m waiting to see if any Star Allance airline would one day take avios as its currency which would really set the cat amongst the pigeons as far as the selling of the benefits of alliances to frequent flyers is concerned 🙂
PS You could also do enough to make sure your Silver renews – the needed tp’s are currently much lower and we are early enough in the new fixed BA year that starts April that if (and only if) you can earn it quickly, under current rules you would then have Silver for rest of this year – which you already have – but would secure it for next year as well. AS soon as that Silver is earned I would turn my atntion to another program.
I wouldn’t sacrifice too much to do it though – as BA isn’t your future and I’m just waiting for them to finish the job they started by gutting Silver benefits.
The other thing I’d suggest for any regular business traveller who will stay in the BA program for any period is to make sure if you have the freedom to choose, that you book every trip as a BA Holiday. It doesn’t take much to do that now (though might not be accommodated by how some corporate travel policies force you to operate).
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