Best Star alliance program for australians

[lkennedy]

While i've been an Air NZ ff member for over 10 years, I have pretty much stopped using it since Virgin gets me FF points on Air NZ. But I may be doing a lot more Start alliance travel in the near future, so I was wondering, is Air NZ the best program for me ? It will be mostly travel within asia, so Singapore airlines seems like the obvious alternative, but I have heard they aren't particularly generous with points.

Any suggestions ? I was looking for a FAQ, but I couldn't find anything in the forums.

Thanks.

 

[smit0847]

Easiest to gain elite status = Aegean.

Most valuable points to redeem = SQ.

Don't know what program has best earn ability.

 

[casanovawa]

As with all of the programs you would probably need to work out what sort of flights in what classes you will tend to be taking and then have a look at a few FF programs and see which ones earn the best and then also compare their burn rates....

Me personally, since USDM left *A (and I think have become even more tedious to try to work out how to redeem), I am buying and using Avianca Lifemiles for my star alliance flights.... But again i don't know which airlines you are planning to fly and what classes etc so don't know how good your earn ratio would be if allocated to Lifemiles... It might also depend on where you tend to go when redeeming these FF miles/points and whether there are any sweet spots in the different airline FF programs...

Aegean is the easiest to get your *G with 20,000 miles required to get *G for at least 3 years....

A little thinking to do but SQ is probably the easiest to just go with, although quite probably not the best value...

 

[gizzard]

A little thinking to do but SQ is probably the easiest to just go with, although quite probably not the best value...

...and, annoyingly, the points expire.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I am not worried about status as my redemptions are in J/F, so for the few *A flight earns I do gain I award to SQ as this is the best *A for myself to award points to, and in particular CC earnt points.

While points do expire 3 years after earn, that is easily more than enough shelf-life for it to not be a problem for me.

 

[lkennedy]

So with Aegean, Is it possible to transfer points from AMEX, etc. to the program ?

 

[SimonF]

Only through spg.

 

[lkennedy]

As Aegean seems like a poor option now, I'm bumping my message to see What is now the bext start alliance deal ? Anything worth moving from Air NZ for ?

 

[Fantic125]

Asiana may be worth looking at.

The key advantages to me are;

40k miles within 2 years to achieve *G (Asiana Diamond),
40k miles within 2 years to retain *G,
miles don't expire for 7 years (base status) or 10 years for *G.

 

[SimonF]

What airline do you mainly fly? Nz? In y?

 

[lkennedy]

I'm about to start a new job, so I don't know their policy. Gnerally be the cheapest flexible fare, but I am in QF also, so i'm looking at this for NZ/Virgin..