-
Boy is it complicated!
I’m flying first class Frankfurt to Singapore (for a few days) then onto Sydney and back the same routing with Lufthansa.
What I understand is that you get miles for status and miles for reward flights. The multiplier for first class is around 300%. Is this just reward miles and or status miles.
My current thoughts are that the Turkish program hits a sweet spot in that at elite status can last for two years.
Thanks in advance
How long is a piece of string.depends if you’re looking to accrue status, accrue enough points for economy flights, accrue enough points for business but slowly, or doing it quickly. If slow, you’re better off choosing a scheme that doesn’t expire its miles.
At the moment I’m just trying to understand the basics as in my second paragraph as that has relevance to all the programs.
Thanks for that Rob, very interesting.
What I really want to know is the basics. The Star Alliance programme is made up of miles flown for status and miles flown for rewards. Is that correct?
Finally is the files flown for status boasted by the cabin and class of ticket you have?
you can match on wheretocredit dot com, to check what booking class (=subset of cabin class) on which airline will earn you in which/other airline’s program.
aa a rule of thumb avios/points/miles earned might increase according to cabin class, but tier points(ie status points) or their equivalent rarely do, tier points are normally assigned to a route by an airline at a flat rate roughly according to distance.
Thanks for that Rob, very interesting.
What I really want to know is the basics. The Star Alliance programme is made up of miles flown for status and miles flown for rewards. Is that correct?
Finally is the files flown for status boasted by the cabin and class of ticket you have?
Each program is different, you will usually earn miles for redemptions and status will usually be earned via miles, miles and segments, miles and dollars spent – this depends on the programme. Miles earned will usually be a factor of the fare code, discount economy tickets will typically earn at 0-.25x, first could be up to 3x – this varies with each programme. Exceptions to this are AC flights on Aeroplan which are a complicated mess, and NZ Airpoints which earn a tied New Zealand dollar but is at least understandable using their online calculator.
The programmes generally considered the best AC Aeroplan (redemptions), A3 Miles+Bonus (status) require you to spend either C$6000 for Gold, or fly four A3 segments so are probably only worth bothering with if these are regular destinations. Other plans like SAS Bonus and NZ Airpoints don’t have home carrier requirements.
These responses reflect how difficult it is and that there is no one-size-fits-all. For me, SQ KrisFlyer is the best option, previously because of the better availability for SQ reward flights (although VA now seem to have pretty good access to this), but also being based in Australia SQ offer a lot of routes ex-Australia to places I need to go (Asia/Europe primarily).
As an aside, HSBC have launched a Star Alliance credit card in Australia (only at the moment), which earns *A Gold (in a program of your choosing, out of 8 Star carriers, currently) based on $4k spend in 90 days as a SUB (but you can retain *A Silver/Gold by spending $30k/$60k annually going forward); earn rate on spend is 1 Star Alliance point per $1, which convert to 0.8 KrisFlyer etc. miles (and as usual some other calculation for NZ) – if this is launched elsewhere, it makes me wonder how packed lounges will get, and how much status will be devalued, since people will find ways of MS-ing $60k if they need to (personally I’m SQ Gold anyway, so rather then select *G in another program I took the 40k Star Alliance points SUB=32k KrisFlyer miles).
if this is launched elsewhere, it makes me wonder how packed lounges will get, and how much status will be devalued, since people will find ways of MS-ing $60k if they need to
Most airlines have crap lounges allocated for star golds in their hubs. Krisflyer ‘gold’ lounge is worse than third party ones. I suspect they call their main J lounge as ‘Silverkris’ just to get around the *A rules.
Its interesting they chose Australia to test the *A card. Most frequent flyers would be 1world (QF) elites and they could get this card to book non-1world travel on *A carriers. There is no competing *A based there. In that sense, UK is a similar market.
Boy is it complicated!
I’m flying first class Frankfurt to Singapore (for a few days) then onto Sydney and back the same routing with Lufthansa.
What I understand is that you get miles for status and miles for reward flights. The multiplier for first class is around 300%. Is this just reward miles and or status miles.
My current thoughts are that the Turkish program hits a sweet spot in that at elite status can last for two years.
Thanks in advance
Very quick result from my spread sheet would put this route (return) in F giving you these percentages required for Star Alliance Gold (excluding any home carrier requirements):
LifeMiles Avianca 344.7%
Miles&Smiles Turkish Airlines 106.7%
EuroBonus Scandinavian Airlines 94.9%
ConnectMiles Copa Airlines 91.5%
ShebaMiles Ethiopian Airlines 85.4%
KrisFlyer Singapore Airlines 85.4%
Asiana Club Asiana Airlines 80.0%
Airpoints Air New Zealand 80.0%
Voyager South African Airways 71.2%
PhoenixMiles Air China 64.4%
MileagePlus United Airlines 64.0%
Aeroplan Air Canada 64.0%
Flying Returns Air India 64.0%
ANA Mileage Club All Nippon Airways 64.0%
Infinity MileageLands EVA Air 64.0%
Royal Orchid Plus Thai Airways Int 64.0%
Miles & More Austrian Airlines 61.7%
Miles+Bonus Aegean Airlines 45.7%
TAP Miles&Go TAP Air Portugal 45.7%EgyptAir doesn’t seem to offer points for fare code F (odd but I don’t have time to look into it), and Avianca requires 12,000 miles on their home airline so Turkish or SAS look like your best bets. The other side of these schemes is redemption so it might be worth seeing which of the higher ranked schemes offer the best value for the points you earn.
These responses reflect how difficult it is and that there is no one-size-fits-all. For me, SQ KrisFlyer is the best option, previously because of the better availability for SQ reward flights (although VA now seem to have pretty good access to this), but also being based in Australia SQ offer a lot of routes ex-Australia to places I need to go (Asia/Europe primarily).
Does the partnership between United Mileageplus and Virgin Australia change anything for you (given it adds domestic earning opportunities)? Youd need four UA segments to qualify for status though so I guess it depends if you every fly east to the US.
The other side of these schemes is redemption so it might be worth seeing which of the higher ranked schemes offer the best value for the points you earn.
Turkish miles are very good value long haul but their customer service is non-existent. If something changes in your itinerary (partner airline cancels or moves one segment) or your own plans change, you’ll have to make a dozen calls before something can happen.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
