ZKOJH From China, joined Sep 2004, 1267 posts, RR: 1 Posted (3 months 2 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 2206 times:
Hi everyone,
Wonder if you FF's can help? At the moment I am a member of the BD Club and travel quite a lot on Star Alliance, but will leave that soon as to the buy out of BD by IAG, and I live in China,
I have a card with Air China, but its rubbish, you can't fly to the places you want to go you have to go where the airline sends you, !
One example of this is I've just returned from my home town in Wuxi which is an hour outside of Shanghai, now I flew down from Beijing but all that Air China could give me were flights to Shanghai - and they then said you have to make your own way to Wuxi as we don't do redemption's on this route - even know there are 2 Air China flights a day from PEK-WUXI.
I have looked at the ANZ card but that's got to be the worse one of all times, very few miles at all on long-haul.
I am into the miles side of the cards but also the one with the best status level, the two I am looking at are LH and have also heard the AC aeroplan one is quite good too??
I hope I hear some good tails of the ''BEST'' FF card for Star Alliance...
TCASAlert From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (3 months 2 weeks 1 day 15 hours ago) and read 2194 times:
I am in a similar situation myself now that BD will no longer exist. The general consensus seems to be Aegean, for with them you get status very quickly (c20k miles for silver). LH is good if you travel regularly.
However, I have gone for UA (despite not living in the US or travelling regularly there). The reason being, their miles do not expire as long as you take at least one flight every couple of years, and their website allows online redemption booking for a few airlines.
I don't fly a lot but like to save up my miles for redemptions, therefore having one without having to keep the miles up is good.
aloges From Germany, joined Jan 2006, 7587 posts, RR: 51 Reply 3, posted (3 months 2 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 2014 times:
Quoting OA260 (Reply 2): 20K gets you Gold. Once you get 4K you get Blue ( Silver ) then another 16K within the same year jumps you to Gold.
You can be going for Gold even with Eco tickets.
Quoting OA260 (Reply 2): A3 is a great program for status less so for redemptions.
If I didn't miss anything, there's only flight rewards, upgrades on A3 flights and car rentals in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria: aegeanair.com. Compare that to e.g. LH and LX where you can spend your miles on anything from their extensive shops and you'll find that Miles & Bonus is good for status and little else.
Walk together, talk together all ye peoples of the earth. Then, and only then, shall ye have peace.
SamuP From Colombia, joined Jul 2010, 48 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (3 months 2 weeks 1 hour ago) and read 1937 times:
AC Aeroplan is pretty good to rack up miles. You qualify for 100% miles even when travelling on promo fares. 25k for silver, 35k for gold, and 100k platinum.
A few drawbacks:
1. There's a minimum number of segments or miles to fly on AC metal to get status. I racked up mora than 50k miles with Star last year, but since I was living in Singapore most of the time, I didn't get the AC threshold and got my status withdrawn. This really pissed me off! So, if you don't fly AC metal often, forget it.
2. It seems like you can only get reward tickets that initiate of end in Canada. I've tried using miles for tickets from ORD to Europe, NYC to Europe, and similar only to find out my miles are not redeemable ... They won't even give you the chance to fly ORD-YYZ-Europe .... Don't know why.
If this works for you, by all means go Aeroplan.
My only reservation with LH M&M is how tight they go with the miles on long haul promo fares. Sometimes you get only 25% of the miles .... along with AF KL 'Flying Blue' some of the worst programs to add miles if you fly economy.
AustrianZRH From Austria, joined Aug 2007, 1186 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (3 months 1 week 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 1908 times:
Quoting SamuP (Reply 4): Sometimes you get only 25% of the miles ....
Flying on airlines of the LH group, you get at least 50% miles on all fares. 25% is on some low fares on SK flights, never have seen that anywhere else. However, as the OP is living in Asia, depending on the traveling profile it might not be so good a program as there is no mileage accrual for the cheapest SQ and TG fares. However, that could be the same on the other programs which I am not as familiar with.
WARNING! The post above should be taken with a grain of salt! Furthermore, it may be slightly biased towards A.
LAX888 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2010, 208 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (3 months 1 week 6 days 10 hours ago) and read 1859 times:
What about the TG Royal Orchid programme? I heard it is not bad and since you live in Asia it might be of benefit to you.
The LH, OS, LX or SN programme is not bad as it does not matter which airline you fly in STAR as all of them count for your status. I only flew about 6000 miles with the LH group out of my 40'000 miles with STAR last year and reached Silver in September although most of my miles were collected on TG, SK and US. However the bad thing is that you have to use a lot of miles to redeem tickets which makes it somewhat unattractive. However you get 25% bonus miles if you fly eligible STAR carriers which is cool (LH group, UA and some other airlines I think). I like to use the miles for last minute trips in Europe when tickets are very expensive and you usually get the 50% flysmart offer which means you only lose 15'000 miles instead of 30'000 for a free ticket. However you pay full taxes and fuel surcharge which sucks as they are almost the same price as the cheapest ticket you can buy. So I only use the miles if the price is double or more of the cheapest Y class fare.
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 18460 posts, RR: 17 Reply 7, posted (3 months 1 week 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 1838 times:
Quoting AustrianZRH (Reply 5): Flying on airlines of the LH group, you get at least 50% miles on all fares. 25% is on some low fares on SK flights, never have seen that anywhere else.
If you're referring to Miles and More, that's not correct. On the lowest LH/LX (and presumably OS) fares within Europe (called Economy Saver by LX) you only get 125 miles per flight regardless of distance. On higher fares it's either 750 or 1250 miles in economy depending on the fare level and restrictions, and 2000 miles in business class. Lower amounts apply on domestic flights, e.g. 500 instead of 750/1250 in economy, and 1500 instead of 2000 in business class.
AustrianZRH From Austria, joined Aug 2007, 1186 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (3 months 1 week 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1708 times:
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 7): If you're referring to Miles and More, that's not correct. On the lowest LH/LX (and presumably OS) fares within Europe (called Economy Saver by LX) you only get 125 miles per flight regardless of distance.
Granted. Let me rephrase it.
Flying on airlines of the LH group on routes where award miles are calculated based on miles flown, i.e., non-European flights, you get at least 50% miles on all fares.
My point was that there is no 25% mileage accrual on any LH group fare.
WARNING! The post above should be taken with a grain of salt! Furthermore, it may be slightly biased towards A.
LOWS From Austria, joined Oct 2011, 611 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (3 months 1 week 2 days 9 hours ago) and read 1661 times:
I had looked at the A3 program, but on LH and OS you don't earn anything on the lower fare buckets. An example: I am booked next week to go to NCL and leave from LHR. I was booked in Y with fare code T. In Miles&More, I earn 750miles per flight. In A3, I earn nothing.
RyanairGuru From Australia, joined Oct 2006, 1205 posts, RR: 1 Reply 10, posted (3 months 1 week 2 days ago) and read 1638 times:
Quoting AustrianZRH (Reply 5): However, as the OP is living in Asia, depending on the traveling profile it might not be so good a program as there is no mileage accrual for the cheapest SQ and TG fares
That's standard. Even SQ KrisFlyer members do not earn on SQ saver fares, which doesn't make me want to rush out and fly them!
However, if you don't fly SQ or pay for higher fair classes then KrisFlyer isn't a bad program, and you get a 10% miles reduction on SQ-reward tickets (ie 45,000mi instead of 50,000 etc). However, points expire after 3 years, which is a pain.
UA MileagePlus is a really good program, but from March you have to fly UA/CO 4 times a year to achieve status - which might not work for you unless you fly to the USA often
jwhite9185 From United Kingdom, joined May 2007, 225 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (2 months 3 weeks 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 1010 times:
Ive got both LH and A3 frequent flier. Ive got a flight to BRU coming up on both LH and SN and I'm undecided on what FFP to use. How can i find out which class I'm booked in?
Ive got brand new accounts on both, however i got a bonus 1000 miles on A3, plus i use booking.com a lot which is one of A3's partners so I'm tempted to use that, but not if I only get about 4 miles on the flights compared to a few hundred with LH.
On the cards: FCO, AGP. In the bag: FRA, BRU, DUB, NCE, GLA, AMS, JFK
LOWS From Austria, joined Oct 2011, 611 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (2 months 3 weeks 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 991 times:
Quoting jwhite9185 (Reply 11): Ive got both LH and A3 frequent flier. Ive got a flight to BRU coming up on both LH and SN and I'm undecided on what FFP to use. How can i find out which class I'm booked in?
Log into the LH "My Bookings" page with your confirmation number, and you can check there. That should include your SN flights too, assuming it's all on one ticket.
jwhite9185 From United Kingdom, joined May 2007, 225 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (2 months 3 weeks 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 987 times:
Ill give that a go then... Cant seem to log on to my SN flight though? Phoned them up and its all confirmed, but for whatever reason it keeps coming up with an error when i try to log on to their site.
Listed as booking class L on LH site - doesn't even show up on A3's listing of miles earned!
[Edited 2012-02-27 08:37:36]
On the cards: FCO, AGP. In the bag: FRA, BRU, DUB, NCE, GLA, AMS, JFK
ZKOJH From China, joined Sep 2004, 1267 posts, RR: 1 Reply 16, posted (2 months 2 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 810 times:
Hi again everyone,
Many thanks for all your feedback it was very good to read it all, after much thinking and reading I have gone for the LH ''Miles and More'' card and have now booked my first trip with LX from PEK-MAN in July, so long BD its be fun but HELLO Lufthansa Club. !!
itsonlyme From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2006, 149 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (2 months 2 weeks 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 640 times:
I also need to do this as I too am with bmi. I'm strongly leaning towards UA. The four segments shouldnt be too bad, as the US is my main destination for travel, however if im in Economy I usually try to avoid UA/CO, but in Business I have found CO to be excellent (havent tried UA in business). I like LH and AC, and fly both a lot, but the requirements on LH are just too high for me atm. Also need a product with a UK credit card (i know LH has this too) as I currently have the bmi/MBNA Amex which is great for accruing miles.
Sponsor Message: 
From China, joined Sep 2004, 1267 posts, 
From , joined Dec 1969, posts, 
From Ireland, joined Nov 2006, 23079 posts, 
From Germany, joined Jan 2006, 7587 posts, 
You can be going for Gold even with Eco tickets. 
From Colombia, joined Jul 2010, 48 posts, 
From Austria, joined Aug 2007, 1186 posts, 
From Switzerland, joined Oct 2010, 208 posts, 
From Australia, joined Oct 2006, 1205 posts, 
From United Kingdom, joined May 2007, 225 posts, 
Printer friendly format 
