Questions and Answers

Hi Ben,

I’m based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

I fly between 10-12 flights a year to the US, Mostly the east coast, but sometimes also to San Francisco or other areas.
I also fly 4-6 flights a year to London.

All of those are economy/coach tickets in EL AL. (And yes, it is really bad, if you have questions on ELAL I can help for sure 🙂 ).

I’m now considering to switch to business class tickets where I can aim to pay up until 3300 USD (For the US flights). I really cannot afford to pay more than this.

Here are my questions –
(1) What alliance would you recommend me –
star alliance? – note that United direct flights from TLV to NYC are not considered good flights and that the connection flights from tel aviv to germany through lufthansa are in very old air planes
I do know that Turkish and Swiss are here so this would be a valid option.
One world? – British airways can fit because I do have flights going to London as well. royal jordanian and Iberia can also work.

(2) Considering the alliance, any recommended credit card? I spent (through company expenses about 20K USD a month, but the credit card cannot be a Citi, Chase, or anything like that. It needs to be generic – have you heard of Sillicon Valley Bank MasterCard?)

DanAmigo, it really depends on what you are looking for. Best hard product? Service? Mileage earning? Mileage usefulness? Destinations? Unfortunately no one offers the best of everything. BA is positive for you since at least you get non-stops for a third of your trips and offers pretty solid US coverage. I like LH J as well but you’ll always have a connection. You might want to pick the best airline for your operational needs and then decide where to credit the miles for the most useful redemptions for you.

I’m not sure what you mean by generic credit card. All cards in the US are issued by a bank. Can you define what you are looking for?

I suggest you Swiss out of the simple reason that they operate both two flights on their A330 one departing at 1600 and one at 5am out of TLV to ZRH and they offer some great Hard and Soft Product. With those times connecting in Zurich would be no Problem and if you have to wait a few hours the new Swiss Business Lounge is great just as the whole ZRH airport is great as well.