Moving to the UK - Should I keep VA or switch to KrisFlyer?

[DJ Jockey]

Hi Everyone,

Hoping someone can give me some advice! I have just reached VA Plat, but am about to relocate to the UK for a few years. With my wife, 6yr old and 1yr old, we have a return trip MEL to LHR (SQ via SIN) and a one way trip there to actually move (again, SQ via SIN), all in J class, a total of 840 SC's each.

We are unable to book codeshare flights with VA flight numbers, and there is no way i can get the 8 sectors to maintain platinum again. So I am wondering whether it is worth signing up for SQ Krisflyer or leaving everything into VA? Currently, my family has no status, but i have pooled my daughters points/status to me. We are planning a bit of travel in europe but not straight away, and i have idea who we would be flying with (probably the cheapest!), and not sure which airlines work use over there.

The best thing I could think of would be to get all the status credits pooled to me and see if i can get the partner gold/platinum so at least my wife has some status for a year or two while we are over there?

Would there be any benefit to switching or staying?

Thanks!

 

[Hvr]

Welcome aboard DJ Jockhttp://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/members/dj-jockey.html you've certainly got an interesting question. Given that VA doesn't have lifetime status it may be worth considering another program whilst you're away if you're going to travel enough to attain a level that would make it worthwhile.

Given the travel there and back would probably accrue some points with another program the thing is, would you use them or would they just expire?

 

[DJ Jockey]

Thanks - I'm not sure that i'd be travelling enough to get status quickly on another airline, at least not to start with. I might just leave it all on VA for now and see what happens when we get there. I'm sure that we'll be able to use the VA points before they expire in some way.

Thanks.

 

[Mr Pumblechook]

FWIW my work future is looking quite sketchy at the moment and I've been looking to preserve my points.

I'm currently VA WP and I've signed up for SQ, DL and QF as these programs seem to be quite friendly to a points squirrel (welll SQ isn't but hopefully the VA transfer is easy) and I've now got all three alliances covered with just EY and friends left out.

The usual advice no doubt applies - decide what you want and use a strategy that maximises the value. I used to value status and paid extra for the SCs but now it's points longevity and covering all bases, so I'm sacrificing the number of points (partner earning rates can be pretty terrible) for knowing that I'm not going to lose them while I work out what I'm doing.

Not the answer but maybe some ideas!