Outsmarting myself?

[Rono]

Folks,

I've been a QFF member since 1995 and in more recent years, Virgin, then joined Cathay and very recently Etihad and Baltic Air.

A change in my client base saw my flights move from being 90% Qantas 10% Virgin to now being 90% Virgin and 10% Qantas. The Etihad and Baltic usually tie into my overseas Virgin legs.

I have set up the family pooled feature on Virgin and hope to score Platinum by the end of 2018.

My questions are along these lines.
a) If I book a Virgin flight with an Etihad leg what rules apply to the SC's i.e. which membership they can be claimed/directed to i.e. Etihad flight SC's to Etihad only now I am an Ethihad member or can I ask for these SC's be redirected to my Virgin SC tally?

b) Can I solely book an Etihad flight and claim the SC's on my Velocity membership?

c) Does it depend on which website I make my booking as I do sometimes use Skyscanner, Matrix etc if I'm not using the actual airlines website to book the flights.

d) I have held off getting my wife joining Etihad until I get a better understanding of the above rules.

Hope that I have made my questions clear.

Cheers

Rono

 

[serfty]

The answers to your questions would be similar to those if the questions were asked of Qantas Frequent Flyer and their oneworld partners.

a) Earn is as per the Frequent Flyer Number entered into the booking for each segment (based on Fare bucket/Distance/Route).
b) Yes
c) No
d) no relevance unless planning to Family pool for Velocity.
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[serfty]

Other than that, how is your Velocity status?

With EY, this may be of assistance: Flying with Etihad Velocity Platinum.

 

[ja1]

I'd say Etihad is a pretty good one to be able to use for SC earn, though you may want to sit back and think about your global travel and whether you can earn VA WP or if you can get some sort of reasonable Etihad status instead as that may be more useful/flexible for overseas travel. If you're mainly domestic then VA WP may generally be more useful.

I'm not really sure about the benefits of being a member of both Etihad's FF program and Velocity if you're going to put all your earn into only one of them..

 

[Jack_OC]

I'd say Etihad is a pretty good one to be able to use for SC earn, though you may want to sit back and think about your global travel and whether you can earn VA WP or if you can get some sort of reasonable Etihad status instead as that may be more useful/flexible for overseas travel. If you're mainly domestic then VA WP may generally be more useful.

I'm not really sure about the benefits of being a member of both Etihad's FF program and Velocity if you're going to put all your earn into only one of them..

Velocity status is much easier to earn/retain, and assuming you're based in Australia, Velocity points are also much easier to earn. Now that you can also transfer Velocity points to KrisFlyer, I think Velocity points are far more valuable and versatile than EY Guest Miles as well.

I think the benefits you get when travelling with either VA or Etihad are similar for holders of status with either program, but the big difference is with other partners. Etihad has a lot more partners than Velocity - including American Airlines, Air NZ, All Nippon Airlines, Asiana, Garuda, Korean Air, Malaysia Airlines and SAS. That said, Velocity includes Singapore Airlines, Silk Air and Delta as partners, while Etihad does not. Then there are a number of partners common to both programs, including Alitalia, Hainan and South African.

Clearly it depends on what airlines you're likely to travel with most, but overall I'd say Velocity makes a lot more sense for most people based in Australia.