New AAdvantage Member claiming old flights

[SeaWolf]

One of my mates who lives in Singapore has horrified me by telling me he's been flying back and forth to here (Perth) on QF and isn't a member in ANY FF program.


Looking at his flying/earning habits, I'm thinking AA is the best program for him, but how far back can new members claim for flights they've already taken? He's got his boarding passes for some flights that happened back in March, but I'm thinking it's probably too late for them.

 

[serfty]

You can't with AAdvantage. Only flights taken on after enrolling are eligible:

"Transactions prior to your enrollment date are not eligible for mileage credit. "

As for QF, It's 30 days:

"(a) Eligible Flights taken after the Member's enrolment date and up to 30 days prior to that date ..."

 

[NM]

And he cannot undertake the AA Platinum Challenge unless he can find 10K EQP on AA flight numbers.

 

[SeaWolf]

The challenge isn't really a factor, he flys economy and only 3 or 4 times a year, so he's never going to have status and only a modest earn.

What he needs is a decent program that isn't going to expire his miles and that doesn't have a really bad burn rate, frills like the challenge and massive status bonuses aren't really a factor. The route he's most likely to burn the points on is SIN-PER, however having had a look at the charts, I'm a bit surprised to find that both QF and AA require 50k miles for that.

I should probably flesh out the situation a bit more. We were all at Uni together in Perth, but him and another mate were on student visas and are back in SIN, one of us has moved to ADL, the rest of us are stuck in PER. Result is that we all fly about between these places quite a bit on our own cash. When going between PER-SIN it's usually cheapest to fly TR, but during peak times or if we're all meeting in SYD or something, then QF will be the best option. So really what's needed is a oneWorld program for econo flyers with modest earn so that now and then he can come down here without having to pay for it.