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Answers (5)

Which US airline program best to choose?

Which US airline program best to choose?

  1. Mi Tu New Member

    Hi,

    I recently moved to the US and I will soon travel between San Francisco and New York for work almost on a weekly basis.
    I’m wondering which airline program is the best for me to sign on.
    Based on the airline fare Delta will be the cheapest one and most likely my company will book the tickets with Delta.
    But I heard that it’s hard to book award flights with Delta.

    I’m originally from Germany and have an account whit Lufthansa (FTL and ca.170,000) since I already flew with Delta several times (MQMs7,758 miles and 2,280Medallion miles). I also have the US Amex gold with ca. 35,000 points.

    I also got the recommendation to earn Delta miles until I have the gold status and then switch and accrue miles through another program which has better benefits with award flights like Alaskan.

    Is that possible? Can I still use the Delta Gold status benefits when it’s not indicated on the ticket?

    Thank you very much!
    Best regards,
    Mi

  2. Gaurav Community Ambassador

    [USER=2154]@Mi Tu[/USER], with travel that regular, I would focus on the program for the airline you will be flying most regularly. The more you travel the more the chances of problems, irregular operations etc and the more valuable higher tier status with a program. I would go to Platinum or higher with DL. After that maybe accrue with Alaska but DL has been known to strip away medallion benefits including upgrades if you switch your mileage accrual to AS so proceed accordingly.

  3. Anonymous Guest

    Hi [USER=2154]@Mi Tu[/USER], and welcome!

    In your situation I would feel [I]great[/I] about focusing on Delta. Spend some time going through the Delta archives on the blog ([URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/category/delta/[/URL]) — there are some great opportunities to boost your status through credit card spend.

    Delta miles are somewhat trickier to redeem, but they’re honestly not worse than anyone else once you understand the quirks. It’s just [I]unique[/I] compared to how other programs work. But ~45% of the nearly a billion miles we’ve helped clients redeem are through Delta, so it is possible.

  4. Mi Tu New Member

    [QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 19264, member: 79″][USER=2154]@Mi Tu[/USER], with travel that regular, I would focus on the program for the airline you will be flying most regularly. The more you travel the more the chances of problems, irregular operations etc and the more valuable higher tier status with a program. I would go to Platinum or higher with DL. After that maybe accrue with Alaska but DL has been known to strip away medallion benefits including upgrades if you switch your mileage accrual to AS so proceed accordingly.[/QUOTE]
    Thank a lot! I will stick with Delta and see how it goes. But with the commute between SFO-NYC it is definitely nice to have the service which comes with the higher status.

  5. Mi Tu New Member

    [QUOTE=”Tiffany, post: 19266, member: 7″]Hi [USER=2154]@Mi Tu[/USER], and welcome!

    In your situation I would feel [I]great[/I] about focusing on Delta. Spend some time going through the Delta archives on the blog ([URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/category/delta/[/URL]) — there are some great opportunities to boost your status through credit card spend.

    Delta miles are somewhat trickier to redeem, but they’re honestly not worse than anyone else once you understand the quirks. It’s just [I]unique[/I] compared to how other programs work. But ~45% of the nearly a billion miles we’ve helped clients redeem are through Delta, so it is possible.[/QUOTE]
    Thank you Tiffany. I will definitely take my time to go through all the posts.As I do want to leverage the miles and have a nice vacation trip soon.

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