Questions and Answers

Hey Lucky,

I’ve lost track of all the award chart devaluations and changes over the past year and was wondering: assuming I want to book long-haul flights in premium cabins, which alliance carriers now offer the most lucrative award charts? Should I still credit my oneworld miles to American if I want to fly first class to the Middle East, Asia, Australia? Where should I credit my Star Alliance miles if I want to fly Lufthansa, Singapore, or Asiana first class? Should I credit to Alaska Airlines whenever possible?

In a similar vein, are there any ways to fast-track alliance status? With new revenue requirements I might have a hard time achieving status on American or United, but are there other airlines with lower status thresholds that would allow me to attain Star Alliance Gold or Oneworld Emerald more easily? I remember reading that Aegean Airlines or some other such carrier made it easy to achieve status, but would be great to get your take on that practice as well.

Thanks buddy!

Jack–there is no one place to park miles. Alaska is a good spot in general but it all depends on what you want to do with them. All the different destinations and airlines you have mentioned different ideal ways of getting there.

[SIZE=4][B]@JackAttack[/B][/SIZE]

Aegean is the still the *A carrier with least miles to get *A Gold at 24K miles to qualify and 12 or 16 I think to re-qualify, problem is that you need 4 segments on Aegean to qualify. Unless you live in Europe or have a chance to stop by for a status run on Aegean it’s not a good option these days since they have no long haul network.

Turkish is also a good option for *A Gold, 40K miles to qualify and 24 if memory serves me to re-qualify.

For flying *A first on miles Aeroplane, LH M&M and possibly United comes to mind, do you routinely get miles from credit cards also? That might be the deciding factor where to bank your miles. SQ First can only be booked from Krisflyer.

If you live in the US and fly paid domestic F then BA’s program is good for Oneworld Emerald. Based not on miles, but on something called Tier points.

You need 1500 Tier points plus 4 segments on BA for Oneworld Emerald. 35K Tier points gets you BA Gold/Oneworld Emerald for life.

F flights up to 2K miles earn 60 Tier points, over 2K earns 210 Tier points. JFK-LAX/SFO direct R/T would earn 420 Tier points. Ultimate Tier points run in the US would be something like NYC-Phoenix-Anchorage R/T for a cool 840 Tier points.

If you already have status with an airline today check out Status Matcher.
[URL]http://statusmatcher.com/[/URL]

Think Turkish have historically been good at matching status.

Agree with Gaurav on Alaska probably being the best option if you are US based.

Hi,

Is there any better reward programme than Krisflyer to credit the miles that I will earn when flying SQ?

Thanks

@BCC – part of that will depend on where you are based and where (what routes) you want to redeem the miles. We’ll need a little more information to help make suggestions.

I advocate tier runs to get BA gold. 3 days, circa 1,700 usd. Plus 4 BA flights. The qualification could last for up to 2 years plus a soft landing to silver. That’s 3 years of premium status. I’ve been creating BA gold tier runs for my friends for ages and they are all happy. My personal setup for hotels/airlines is: BA gold, United (star alliance) gold and IHG Platinum.