EIRules From Ireland, joined Aug 2007, 641 posts, RR: 10 Posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 11 hours ago) and read 785 times:
Hi all
I am currently BA silver but was wondering about the following question. If I was never to have flown before and wanted to earn elite status with any of the 3 alliances (ie Star Gold, Oneworld Emerald etc), which airline would be the easiest to get it with and what kind of price would the required flights be (for example, LHR-HKG in Business be enough to earn Emerald on CX but not BA and how much is the current market price??) My hometown airport is DUB!
Next Flights: EI DUB-LHR A320, BA LHR-SFO B744, UA SFO-LAS A320, BA LAS-LHR B744, EI LHR-DUB A320
DocGATTACA From Singapore, joined May 2011, 43 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 743 times:
I used to have elite status on Aeroplan with Air Canada. Their Gold Status kicked in at 35k miles. This was two or three years ago, so I am not sure if it is still the case. Furthermore, it was possible to opt for 2-3k status miles at the beginning of each year (instead of upgrade certificates etc), so in reality if you had elite status during the previous year you could actually get to Gold with about 32k flight miles. These days I rarely fly AC so I had to switch programs. Like many other airlines now you have to fly a certain number of miles with them (10k I think) to achieve any status, regardless of the number of miles you fly with other carriers in the same alliance, Star in my case. I'm now on Mileage Plus with UA. However, since I'm based out of SIN, virtually every other trip beyond Asia bumps up my status level.
As for ticket prices, AC is quite expensive as airlines go, partly due to Canadian airport taxes. However, I always thought their service was quite good. I'm actually flying to Vancouver in a few weeks and UA was definitely the cheaper option (versus SQ or UA connecting to AC).
For flights to secondary cities in Europe on a Star Alliance carrier, I quite like TK. They tend to have very good deals, and their lounge in IST is great. However, I have no idea what their FF program is like. If I was flying DUB-HKG I would certainly look at them.
Roseflyer From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 8736 posts, RR: 52 Reply 5, posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 693 times:
American Airlines has a challenge program. You can pay money and do a 3 month challenge to get quickly to elite. I believe it is about $200. You then do 5,000 miles in 3 months for Gold or 10,000 miles for Platinum. One international trip can get you platinum, and it's a soft landing to gold so you can spend $200 or so dollars and get status for 2 years.
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HOONS90 From Canada, joined Aug 2001, 2667 posts, RR: 54 Reply 6, posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 1 hour ago) and read 661 times:
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Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 5): American Airlines has a challenge program. You can pay money and do a 3 month challenge to get quickly to elite. I believe it is about $200. You then do 5,000 miles in 3 months for Gold or 10,000 miles for Platinum. One international trip can get you platinum, and it's a soft landing to gold so you can spend $200 or so dollars and get status for 2 years.
Beware though, the requirements for the challenge are in points and not miles, which are two different things.
Quite a lot of the discounted fares found on the web are in the N fare class. That fare class only earns 0.5 elite qualifying points per mile flown.
The biggest mistake made by most human beings: Listening to only half, understanding just a quarter and telling double.
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From Ireland, joined Aug 2007, 641 posts, 
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