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I have been travelling all my life (25 years) but have yet to join a Travel Rewards program (i.e. KrisFlyer, United Mileage Plus, etc). I recently opened up the Chase Sapphire Card so that I could gain points to transfer to its rewards programs. I was just wondering which program I should join? I was thinking of join one that participates in the Star Alliance (as that contains the most airlines). Also, I don't travel too often (a couple of times a year by plane) so I'm mainly looking for programs that could allow me to more affordably upgrade to business class. I mostly travel to Asia from the United States.
You should really base it on what city you fly out of and the what airline serves it as a hub, as for the most part you will have one airline dominate an airport. In Atlanta obviously you want Delta, in Chicago it would be United.
But you say you don't travel often? Yes you can get points from credit cards but you still need to put some butt time on a plane to get full benefits and get to the higher frequent flyer "elite" levels that will get you upgrades. For Delta that would be in the realm of 50,000 butt miles a year for gold. Also, airlines are going to a revenue based program that gives you frequent flyer points based on how much you pay for a ticket, not how far you fly - a couple trips to Asia a year used to be enough to bump me up to Delta's plantinum medallion, now that is not the case with the cheap seats my company buys. But if like you say, you don't fly that much, I am afraid you won't get the full benefits - probably not business class on international, defenitly not on Delta (not sure how other airlines work).
The alliances work, to a certain degree, although you still feel like second class citizens as an elite flyer on a partner airlines. Many times however you seem to get different partner systems that don't talk to each other and they don't know.
In summary - every year these frequent flyer programs are devalued, and they are moving to revenue based - based on how much you spend on a ticket rather than how much you fly. Get the credit card, put it all on one airline that you use the most, and get what you can out of it - but don't expect much.
I take the cash rewards from our heaviky used credit card instead if miles. We fly coach and my ex accountant brain says we're ahead by getting cash instead if miles.
You should really base it on what city you fly out of and the what airline serves it as a hub, as for the most part you will have one airline dominate an airport. In Atlanta obviously you want Delta, in Chicago it would be United.
But you say you don't travel often? Yes you can get points from credit cards but you still need to put some butt time on a plane to get full benefits and get to the higher frequent flyer "elite" levels that will get you upgrades. For Delta that would be in the realm of 50,000 butt miles a year for gold. Also, airlines are going to a revenue based program that gives you frequent flyer points based on how much you pay for a ticket, not how far you fly - a couple trips to Asia a year used to be enough to bump me up to Delta's plantinum medallion, now that is not the case with the cheap seats my company buys. But if like you say, you don't fly that much, I am afraid you won't get the full benefits - probably not business class on international, defenitly not on Delta (not sure how other airlines work).
The alliances work, to a certain degree, although you still feel like second class citizens as an elite flyer on a partner airlines. Many times however you seem to get different partner systems that don't talk to each other and they don't know.
In summary - every year these frequent flyer programs are devalued, and they are moving to revenue based - based on how much you spend on a ticket rather than how much you fly. Get the credit card, put it all on one airline that you use the most, and get what you can out of it - but don't expect much.
Well New York is served by 3 major airports in the metro area right? JFK is used as a hub for Delta and American. Really with so many choices in NY, you can probably go with any frequent flyer program and be assured of flights anywhere.
You should join all of them and rack up the miles for whichever airline you are using. That said, if you are asking which airline you should plan to fly and transfer most of your sapphire points to, then there are only a few choices. You can do Southwest or Virgin (which wouldnt offer any alliance) or United or Singapore which are both part of Star Alliance, Korean Air which is Skyteam, or British Air which is OneWorld. Do any particular airlines stand head and shoulders above others for you and your particular destinations? All the alliances have several really good airlines to choose from for Asia. Redemption for actual flights (which you seem less interested in doing) I would say is strongest with United Airlines at the moment so that would be the route I'd go, but I don't know about just upgrades. You may (but I'm really not sure) need to have miles/points with a particular airline to upgrade on that airline's flights...which in that case would really limit you.
Alaska Airlines has code share agreements with the three major alliances. There was a devaluation recently with their FF miles, but for now, it still remains a really good program for those who for whatever reason can't be loyal to just one alliance. Just be aware that you might not earn 100% of the points flown for each partnership flight, which is not ideal, but a good way to keep from having orphan points with an account in each alliance.
You don't have to actually fly Alaskan Airlines, just fly with any of their partners and credit the flights to your Mileage Plan account. You can then use the miles for any of the airlines in their partnership.
Alaska Airlines has code share agreements with the three major alliances. There was a devaluation recently with their FF miles, but for now, it still remains a really good program for those who for whatever reason can't be loyal to just one alliance. Just be aware that you might not earn 100% of the points flown for each partnership flight, which is not ideal, but a good way to keep from having orphan points with an account in each alliance.
You don't have to actually fly Alaskan Airlines, just fly with any of their partners and credit the flights to your Mileage Plan account. You can then use the miles for any of the airlines in their partnership.
Take a good look at Singapore Krisflyer if travel to Asia is your primary goal. Since you don't fly much, you'll be earning most of your points from credit cards (both sign up bonuses and ongoing spend). Citibank Thank You points, American Express Membership Rewards points, Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints, and Chase Membership Rewards points all can be transferred to Singapore's Krisflyer program, so it has the most credit card earning options of any frequent flyer program. And Singapore Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, so you can use Krisflyer points to travel on United (as well as other Star Alliance member airlines) as well.
The biggest downside of Krisflyer is that points expire after three years after they are earned, regardless of account activity (which is not the way most frequent flyer programs currently work). So you wouldn't want to transfer any credit card points to Krisflyer until you are CERTAIN you're going to be using them in the near future to book a flight!
You also need to know that getting good use out of frequent flyer programs requires a certain amount of travel flexibility. If you have little flexibility in terms of your travel dates and origin/destination airports, frequent flyer programs may not work well for you.
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