coastieexpat

A few years back. I joined the British Airways, executive club. I need to go back to Britain at least three times a year, for either business or family.

I studied the system for quite awhile, and for the last few years I have flown in business class, and have enjoyed both the premium lounges, (quiet, free food and booze ! ) as well as being able to take advantage of the fast track line.

I do have to pay a wee bit more , but the advantages far outweigh the extra cost. ( I don't have kids or a mortgage ! ).

Do any of you take advantage of frequent flyer programmes ?

expatasia

I use the BA one too, when I'd (we'd) collected enough points to get free flight home around Crimbo I found I could only get seat availability in mid Jan AND both flights out and back had to be on a Tuesday or Wednesday - meant losing out financially as I work freelance.


I don't rate BA as an airline at all but as they chuck in the Spain (or other Europe) bit of my Tokyo-Heathrow trips for next to nowt I stick with them and just grumble at their poor service/indifferent attitude/threatened strikes etc.

Kaffy Mintcake

I do for Delta because I've been flying them a lot for work lately. I just reached Silver Medallion status and have their credit card too. I should be up to about 100,000 miles soon ... hoping that will be something I can turn into a trip in the future.

coastieexpat

You are right, awards availability can be an issue, I only use miles to upgrade, however you can use BA miles on American airlines, and you don't get the heavy UK taxes and fuel surcharge, i.e west coast to east coast , 30,000 miles + $15.00 tax.

I really haven't had an issue with the quality of service on BA , however Asian airline company's are renowned for there customer service.

expatasia

Oh absolutely - no comparison, some of the things BA staff are guilty of would lead to mass staff hara-kiri here.

However, three Xmases ago there was serious overbooking at Htrw on our return back here - I volunteered to give up confirmed seats on the flight & they put us up in London for the night, upgraded our flights to biz class plus offered us 300Euro coupon each(or slightly less in cash) for use on future BA flights (which we used to go down under actually the following Crimbo).

penguinbar

I have credit cards with Continental and Delta. I get a free domestic companion ticket each year with my Delta platinum card and I can also use pay with miles with them. I just bought a ticket to Edinburgh for 100,000 miles(used to be 50,000 )on Continental.It saved me over $600. I also get 2 free Presidents Club passes a year with Continental. I used pay with miles when hubby was coming over fom Edinburgh on Delta. I got $500 knocked off the flight. I charge my health insurance and my utilities on my cards .I charge everything I can and never have a balance so it's worth it. I also am signed up with e rewards to get miles for taking surveys.

coastieexpat

I just got 1200 miles for my dogs flea repellent, ( 12 miles per $1 ), plus a Chase card with 100,000 miles, I have managed to accrue around 200,000 miles on item's I would be purchasing anyway.


I encourage anyone who flies at least a few times a year to consider some of the freebies out there.

Check out www.flyertalk.com I found most of the information I needed on this site.

dbj1000

I've had one credit card or another linked to my British Airways Executive account for the last 10+ years. Over here it's a Chase card that costs $70 per year membership.

As a result, I haven't paid for ANY airfare for me or my family in the past decade!

(except for the outrageous tax, fees and surcharges)

For all BA's problems with service, strikes etc., they've continued to try and retain Executive Club members through various generous air miles offers. Right now I have two e-coupons in my account, valid for two years, which allow me to have a companion fly for free with me on any air miles flight I take. These coupons are supposed to be one per year once you spend >$30,000 on the BA credit card, but I have two already and expect a third when I hit $90k spend this year.

Englishmum

I've never had a problem with BA either and have often been upgraded (and only ever book economy seats).

I do agree that the Asian airlines have excellent cabin service in all classes; I'm currently a Krisflyer Gold Elite (Star Alliance) with Singapore Airlines and usually fly the JFK-Frankfurt-Singapore route on their old 747's (due to be retired soon I think). They still come round in the economy cabin with a hot towel and menu cards. Cocktails and all alcoholic drinks are still complimentary. I was able to have a shower in the Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt because of the FF card, which was nice as the journey is 23 hours flying time....

Unfortunately the policy of Singapore Airlines is to never, ever give upgrades even to their most elite frequent flyers (Solitaire PPS who must give $250k worth of business to them annually!).

They own 49% of Virgin Atlantic and I'm flying to London next weekend with them...apparently I will be allowed to take an extra case up to 23kg....no idea if I will be allowed into the Virgin Clubhouse though...

Englishmum

Also forgot to add that we have loads of American Express Reward Points, which allows you to get award tickets on a number of airlines and no blackout dates.

I try to pay for most purchases with my Amex cards (have a US and a Singapore one).

I've also got FF memberships with Continental Airlines - it's a major hub for them at my local airport, Newark, and have about 26,000 miles with American Airlines, although they have few routes from Newark.

One of the other things I'm now doing is to make internet purchases via the FF membership schemes. For example, I've just bought an iPad for my husband's birthday. I went to the Continental Airlines website, brought up my FF membership number and went to their 'Retail Partners' section and chose the Apple Store (even though there is an Apple Store at my local mall 2 miles up the road!). They give 2 FF miles per $1 purchase (some retailers give more points per $1 spent). I got free shipping and the item arrived 1.5 days later to my door! You can even order bouquets of flowers in this way, or stuff from Sears/K Mart/Target and dozens of other retailers.

It's a great way to keep FF memberships which are about to expire going a bit longer, especially in my case with AA.

meauxna

They have an airport up there in WI?

How's that gig going anyway.. will have to find your report..somewhere!

tonrob

I have frequent flier accounts with BA, AA, US Airways, Lufthansa and Southwest. With hotels I'm with Marriott, Starwood and IHG. Rental cars - Hertz, Avis and Enterprise. I'm also a member of Amtrak Guest Rewards.

Most of these were tactical sign-ups - done for a specific reason rather than my being particularly loyal to any of those brands.

BA, Marriott and Starwood were all because of credit card sign-up deals. Likewise most of my AA points are through the current (utterly crazy) card deals although I've had the account for years as I used to fly them fairly often on business. I've picked up more BA miles this year through credit card deals than I would have earned had I flown 75 trans-Atlantic crossings in Premium economy!

All the car rental ones were simply to get perks like free additional drivers and fast check-out. I joined Amtrak because I found out that I could buy points to pay for my ticket for less than the actual cost of the ticket.

To dbj's point, if you play the game you really can get away with not paying for flights or hotels at all - or at least hardly ever. These days most of my points are picked up via special offers (e.g. credit cards and bank accounts) and then simply topped up with the occasional paid flight I do with work.

Scouse Express

No, I just fly on "Buddy-Passes" because I have friends who work for Airlines.


Jim

penguinsix

I'm pretty heavily into BA (about 500k miles) but I'm not flying them regularly enough to maintain my status at present (I'm in Asia for a few years). When I am doing to the Atlantic routes I often will supplement my tier point requirements with AA domestic First Class flights (Y-Class Upgrades) that counted for tier points with BA. I could do a cross country hop (IAD-DFW-LAS-LAX-DFW-IAD) and get a ton of segments necessary to keep at least Silver status for another year.

http://flyertalk.com is a great resource for "mileage runs" and other advice on how to get the best out of the mileage programs.

Yorkieabroad

Singapore are consistently the best airline I have ever flown - haven't been on them for about 5 years, but will be going back to Singapore next year and they will be top of the list. Back in the 90's you used to be able to qualify for lifetime Solitaire status at the completion of 5 consecutive years of PPS....I missed it by about 6 months when they axed the scheme

Back then, they used to regularly give us upgrades as well....I used to travel a lot (30-50,000 a month) and company policy was anything over 3 hours was business. I remember sitting there in the departure lounge with the CEO on the short hop back from Saigon to Singapore (<3 hours, hence economy) and my name got called. I knew what was coming, so ignored it for a while, then they came and hunted me down. It was a full flight and they insisted on upgrading me despite my requests to give it to someone else....anyone else....even my CEO...but no, the name on the boarding pass has to be the bum on the seat and they'd already reassigned me so I got to travel in the front with my boss in the back. It was a really quiet ride back to the office from the airport......