Need help with Airline Loyalty - which one ?

[mach40ars]

Hi There,

I want to make sure that i get the most out of my flying miles by claiming against the correct program....

Now my loyalty programs,

QFF Gold (have earned 1085 since April this year) hopefully achieve platinum at some stage ?
Velocity Silver - need another 120 points to retain by November
Air Miles NZ - Just joined (had some lufthansa flights in europe) and have 300 air dollars


So my question is this, with who should I put some work into to achieve the best result ?, I am lucky and can fly with any carrier (domestic economy, international business).

Although I enjoy flying with Virgin and I would like to support them, their international and partner airline connections let them down, thus the Air NZ membership.

I have also heard of status matching, can anyone explain this ? if/when i reach a higher level with qantas i'm not sure that there is any reason for me to continue ?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

PS - great forum people!!!

 

[Moopere]

Welcome to AFF Mach40ars,

So my question is this, with who should I put some work into to achieve the best result ?, I am lucky and can fly with any carrier (domestic economy, international business).

Although I enjoy flying with Virgin and I would like to support them, their international and partner airline connections let them down, thus the Air NZ membership.

A couple of questions from me which might help the knowledgeable folks here to answer your query

1) Where do you intend to fly when using your FF points? What area of the world?

2) Given 1) above, which airline, or more probably, which alliance is likely to fit your upcoming flight patterns?

3) Presuming that you are going to be based in Australia, where you will spend most of your time, and fly in/out as your whim dictates, what are the local FF earning opportunities? Credit cards and whatnot?


To give you an example of what I mean. I live and work in Australia, so my major source of FF points is spending on locally available credit cards. Straight up then, I'm a bit limited; QFF, Velocity and Krisflyer are the big guns of the local CC FF programmes.

Most of my work related travel is domestic, my leisure travel is generally international and at the moment, is concentrated on SE Asia and the Pacific.

The above has led me to QFF, and more broadly oneworld, though frankly, SE Asia and the Pacific has a massive massive hole in oneworlds coverage at the moment. Hopefully the inclusion of MH late next year will fix that up. I like lounges and as most of my actual trips are domestic pursuing status with QFF suits me at the moment. As I finish my trekking through Asia and start looking to Europe (or the Mid East) I'll probably have to think about Star Alliance a bit more seriously, which, given local FF programs will mean trying to gain status with Krisflyer probably.

 

[mach40ars]

A couple of questions from me which might help the knowledgeable folks here to answer your query

1) Where do you intend to fly when using your FF points? What area of the world?
Given that we are expecting our first child soon, I think that we will be holidaying close to home or perhaps sth pacific.

2) Given 1) above, which airline, or more probably, which alliance is likely to fit your upcoming flight patterns?
Star Alliance & one world are similar in this regard

3) Presuming that you are going to be based in Australia, where you will spend most of your time, and fly in/out as your whim dictates, what are the local FF earning opportunities? Credit cards and whatnot?
We live in hobart, connections here are rubbish at the best of times for o/s flights, credit cards we use amex for business.

I will be doing more travel to se asia and china in the coming months/years, so i'm not sure who best services these area's ?