Questions and Answers

hi.

i recently have started travelling( not that frequent but plan on making some long haul international trips when i get the chance.
i am trying to figure out which is the best frequent flyer program to go for and which alliance. considering A. i am not that frequent of flyer but plan on making some international long haul trip which should get me a some miles and there fore would like status that is easy enough to maintain/ get with some long haul flights and B for redemption, i would travel to new places but also will need flying to central Asia kept in mind as one the awards redemption i might be needing to make preferrably

i want to which frequent flyer program to look at considering best way to get status and better redemption value for long haul to Asia( other places work too, but central Asia is kinda a flight i know i will be taking the most).

i have flown Turkish airlines a few times. . they do have a low level for qualification/re qualification, however, im not sure if it is the best program to go for redemption.

i looked at the asian club also, very easy for status, redemption is close to what it is for Turkish airlines.

i have not looked at skyteam yet, which bring me to the second part of my question( forgive me since this might be a very noob question) . as i mentioned i want an alliance which also has to go to central Asia, which in skyteam is saudia only while i have Qatar for one world. in the case of skyteam, i do book an award ticket to go home, will i be able to split the trip between multiple carrier while on the same itinerary( i live in Houston and saudia does not fly to Houston, yet) for example i take KLM/Airfrance to somewhere and take saudia onwards to my final destination while paying only the miles for north america to central Asia region.

I think Star Alliance & One World have a strong presence in Central Asia. Not knowing which cities you will be flying to exactly it is tough to suggest straight up.

If you are flying long haul on Star Alliance (*A), it is better to credit your miles to one of the following (assuming you target * Gold initially):
Singapore – 50000 miles to gold – Good mileage currency, decent taxes & fees when redeeming, great product, excellent service
Asiana – 40000 miles to get gold – miles valid for 10 years IDK about the redemption.
Aegean – Used to be the go to option for * Gold but not anymore. So don’t fall for antique info.
United – Unless your ticket prices are high, UA doesn’t come on top. With long haul flights better to stay away from UA. Redemption rates are decent for econ/bizz but forget about First class redemption.

If you are flying OneWorld (OW), crediting to AA makes the most sense to me. AA top tier status (Exec Plat) is the best of all.
[I]There could be more options, but this is what I can think of in a jolt.[/I]

[QUOTE=”PhatMiles, post: 7593, member: 522″]I think Star Alliance & One World have a strong presence in Central Asia. Not knowing which cities you will be flying to exactly it is tough to suggest straight up.

If you are flying long haul on Star Alliance (*A), it is better to credit your miles to one of the following (assuming you target * Gold initially):
Singapore – 50000 miles to gold – Good mileage currency, decent taxes & fees when redeeming, great product, excellent service
Asiana – 40000 miles to get gold – miles valid for 10 years IDK about the redemption.
Aegean – Used to be the go to option for * Gold but not anymore. So don’t fall for antique info.
United – Unless your ticket prices are high, UA doesn’t come on top. With long haul flights better to stay away from UA. Redemption rates are decent for econ/bizz but forget about First class redemption.

If you are flying OneWorld (OW), crediting to AA makes the most sense to me. AA top tier status (Exec Plat) is the best of all.
[I]There could be more options, but this is what I can think of in a jolt.[/I][/QUOTE]

thanks for the prompt reply,
i have relatives in Pakistan, which mean that one place i will be going periodically, i do get Qatar for one world and Turkish airlines for star alliance traveling options, plus Etihad and Emirates and gulf air and so on, pretty ,much all the middle eastern arlines. Singapore stopped flying there, so krisflyer is not an option anymore since redmption is beyond crazy(right?) for partner airlines, whereas Cathay used to fly, but i have not checked recently ( i doubt they do, since Singapore stopped flying there). these are the major options i can think of if it helps you give me a better recommendation.

As i mentioned i recently started flying, i really have no loyalty to any specific airline so i can go with any. im just trying find a program that has a good balance between status and also good redemption.

i did see the Turkish and Asiana slightly lower requirements for status, but was not sure about the redemption being the best option. i also disregarded UA because of the spend requirement, since i know i will not reach the required 6000 for them, which is sad, since living in Houston, i could have really racked some miles for status retention.

I agree with you on the AA being the choice for OW. do you think Turkish is a good option for star alliance? based on redemption?? or there is a better program? because reward travel could be for any other destination also.

one plan that i though about as an option was to save up and wait for a status challenge from AA to get executive platinum( or the very least platinum) and then do a status match on Turkish to get my star alliance gold. this way i can both options available for future travel and redemption depending on needs then. what do you think?/ is that good idea or not worth ad maybe stick earning status with one through flying

p.s sorry for the slight rambling. wanted to make sure i can provide with as much detail i can. so what ever you find relevant.

[USER=821]@Talha shaikh[/USER] how often will you be flying to Pakistan and from where? I assuming you will be booking economy seats when paying cash?

The problem with Asiana Club is this.
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2012/11/19/why-do-south-korean-airlines-hate-us-so-much/[/URL]

Good if you just want status or life gold after 500K miles, not so good if you want to redeem you miles.

As Phatmiles said Aegean made their program worse and you need to fly 4 segments with them to get *A Gold at the lower miles possible.

That said they are still the easiest *A Gold card to get, and if you are flying Turkish you could do a stopover in IST and fly IST-ATH-LCA on Aegean as a status run.

Same day return Y tickets possible from around 300 USD, or spend the night in ATH on the way back for a Y ticket price of 140 USD for some dates in November that I just checked.

This of course assume you have a passport that gives you easy access to the Schengen area.

Doing this will give you *A Gold after 24K miles, and it’s possible to re-qualify at 12K miles and 4 segments on Aegean.
[URL]http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/about-the-program/gold/[/URL]

Earning charts on *A partners here
[URL]http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/how-to-earn/all-airlines/#TURKISH[/URL]

Hope this helps.