-
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 than Gold and you already have 2700 of them so about 1/3rd of them. 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 renewal is earned I would turn my attention 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) but is a sparkly bit still left in the BA program.
The issue with choosing Qatar Airways over BA is how easy is it for you to retain status with them? They still have a requirement to actual fly 4 sectors on QR metal (I think?) to retain status. BA no longer has that restriction so you could still fly QR metal and credit to BA to gain / retain status with BA. Also assume you’re flying business class long haul? In which case is BA Gold really worth it? Silver is still the sweet spot and as @Lady-London says far easier to retain. And if you’re flying QR metal BA Gold isn’t going help gain access to TFW at T5 since QR flies from T4 at LHR.
Have a look at Matts Planet YouTube channel. He did an in depth review of Finnair and Qatar FF schemes. After watching I decided neither scheme worked for me based on my travel. YMMV.
Many thanks for the advice provided so far. Certainly food for thought. Just to give a bit more clarity. Most of my travel will be Australia/East Asia and North America. My initial thoughts were to stick with Qatar for the long haul east of the UK and use American for the North American trips and BA for the European trips. Back in the 2010’s I used to be a BA GGL member as well as a Star Alliance Gold, so my travel is going back to those levels again. I will certainly look into the Star Alliance airlines for the best offerings. Once again many thanks for the tips. Happy travels 😀
Consider Finnair. Also consider Iberia depending on the code most of your flights are actually ticketed on. I fly routes that could be BA metal or QR metal (each with a stop). The sweet spot is now with Qatar metal (for the better hard experience), booked using a BA code, crediting to Finnair (which gets 150% of miles flown). BA must be happy at this madness they’ve created.
I wouldn’t consider QR privilege club. It is a lot less generous. But does get you first class lounge in Doha if your entitled to use business class lounge.
They still have a requirement to actual fly 4 sectors on QR metal (I think?) to retain status. BA no longer has that restriction so you could still fly QR metal and credit to BA to gain / retain status with BA. Also assume you’re flying business class long haul? In which case is BA Gold really worth it? Silver is still the sweet spot and as @Lady-London says far easier to retain.
I have not looked at any of the schemes in great detail, but Qatar flights are not credited to BA based on the fare.
If you spend £7500 on BA flights and credit them to BA you will get OWS. I would have thought crediting those BA flights to QR would (in general and on average) get you beyond OWS equivalent? Is this not the case?
If you have £7500 to spend on flights, and you spend the money (mainly) on QR, would you get further by crediting them to QR or BA?
If you spend £7500 on BA flights and credit them to BA you will get OWS. I would have thought crediting those BA flights to QR would (in general and on average) get you beyond OWS equivalent? Is this not the case?
If you have £7500 to spend on flights, and you spend the money (mainly) on QR, would you get further by crediting them to QR or BA?
I can’t remember the detail of the QR scheme as I lost interest when I learnt about the requirement to credit 4 Qatar metal flights to QR Privelege, that made it not suitable for me.
But I think QR metal flights in business class on QR flight numbers credit to BA at 25% or 50% of mileage flown depending on fare class. So I think that works better than crediting to QR. BA flight numbers on QR metal I think credit based on spend.
Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I am still in a bit of a tiswas with all of these, and I fear I am spending more time than necessary doing the various calculations. Here is my situation. I am currently a BA Silver Card Holder, I have just under 3000 tier points for this current year and I have the following flights to book in business class fares.
1/ LHR to CLT to LAX to PHL to LHR
2/ LHR to ICN via DOH (Qatar Airways)
3/ LHR to YOW
4/ LHR to KIX (Qatar Airways or possibly Cathay Pacific)I also have at least 4 European return flights with flexible economy fares (DUB/BRU/FRA/BOL).
Points Worrier mentioned considering Finnair. I have looked at the BA website and certainly with the flights for 2025 above would not get me close to BA gold, I think I would be shy by about 6000 Tier Points. There is a possibility of 1 or 2 similar long haul flights before the end of the year, but probably too close to chance adding to my BA account. So its a spin of a coin to see which One World carrier to sign up for a frequent flyer program.
Kind regards, Ron
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
