Asiana or ANA membership? *A

[Claudius]

Hi,

I will be flying to Korea a fair bit next year but I continue to fly to Japan as part of my work. Changes at my company means we now have a partnership with ANA and thus our tickets are booked with them for Japan (I fly J).

Korean trips I am free to book whichever company I wish, usually this means QF, however this is a codeshare with Asiana anyway, and I dont rely on these points to retain QF WP status which I usually get from trips to Europe and USA.

The question I guess would be, should I join ANA, Asiana or consider United?

The United membership might be challenging as I only go to the US once a year (MEL-LAX) which wouldnt cover the 4 flights in the US requirement, I also dont particularly like flying United metal and would rather stick with QF.

ANA I have heard you don`t earn many points when not flying NH metal. I could potentially manage this as the cost for flying NH MEL-SYD-HND-ICN in J is comparable to flying Asiana MEL-SYD-ICN. Its worth noting there is no guarantee the korean trips will continue after 2 years but the Japan trips are a constant 2-3 J trips per year.

Asiana, I believe a lot of people have pointed a lot of advantages to this program here, would be nice if there was more information.

Most important to me would be the earn and burn rates for both programs, points expiry and other rules. I plan to use points earned to redeem for holidays in Asia.

Anyone knows calculators or any tools that would help understand the differences between these two airline programs?

Thanks in advance.

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

I agree that it is quite difficult to find out information about both of these programs purely from the respective FF websites. However, I would suggest looking at the FlyerTalk threads for both of these programs as no doubt there will be a lot of information there. Additionally, you could ask any specific questions you may have.

As an alternative, have you thought of joining SQ's Krisflyer FF program? If you have complete freedom on your flights to Korea, and provided these are in J, you may just be able to make PPS depending on the number of return trips and spends. This would give you A* Gold and certain other perks such as access to SilverKris in SIN regardless of class of travel and some extra perks. You could also credit your ANA trips which would definitely take you over the 50,000 miles required for KF Gold.

Instinctively, I would go for Asiana based on the ability to earn lifetime A* and the longer qualification period.

 

[seanpodge]

While in a rather different situation to yourself Claudius, (self funded travel in Y), I still think Asiana Club does have some advantages. The main one is as wannabeinvestmentbanker said the lifetime *G after 500,000 miles (There is a further OZ lifetime tier at 1,000,000 miles, but the *G benefits are the same). *G with OZ is earned by earning 40,000 miles within 24 months after your application date. Based on your travel patterns, you should easily get that. You can check out the earning chart here.

The points earned last for a minimum of 7 years. If you have a *G status, they can last for 12 years. I'm not aware of any way to extend their life beyond that, but 12 years is still a long time. Award flights are based on zones. From Australia, the best value seems to be to NE Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan) at 120,000 return in J and Europe at 165,000 return in J. If originating in NE Asia, it's 120,000 return in J to Europe, Australia (South Pacific) or North America. One ways are half price. Apart from SA airlines, awards can also be booked with Qatar and Etihad. You can also earn points with QR and EY to redeem, but these don't count towards status. There are also a bunch of hotel, hire car, et al partners to earn non status miles. There are also some dates around major Korean holidays where a surcharge may need to be paid for award flights. YQ has to be paid as well. I did a award last year PEK-TPE-NRT-SEAxLAX-ICN-HRB for 120,000 points and about A$500 YQ in J.

There is also a family plan where you can link up family member's individual accounts to pool points, but I don't have any first hand experience to share with you as to how to set that up.

Even if you find the earn and burn rates poor value, it may still be worthwhile getting up to 500,000 to lock in lifetime *G.

 

[Claudius]

Thanks for the info Sean, I was about to go with ANA before I read this. It seems like going OZ has too many perks to ignore, lifetime *A gold would be worth it.