Carolinian
TUG Member
The new issue of Endless Vacation has an article on ff miles that does have some good information, but makes one counterproductive suggestion:
''Join the frequent flyer program of every airline you fly, even if you think you'll only make one trip''
What is wrong with this is that every frequent flyer should concentrate their milage where they can. For those who fly less often, this allows them to build up milage for a free ticket quicker. For those who fly more often, it allows them to build up milage in a single program to quality for elite status and its benefits.
Thus, one should only use one ff program within easy alliance. NW, DL, and CO are in SkyTeam, and one can put miles from any one of them on any other airline within the alliance. The thing to do is choose one within that group and put any miles from all three on that one. US and UA are also in an alliance, and the same principle applies; choose one of them and put all your miles there. AA does not have any domestic alliance partners, so it is a seperate case. The bottom line is that the most efficient pattern is to join three programs, one among NW, CO, and DL, one among US and UA, and then AA. That covers the waterfront and maximizes your ability to concentrate your miles.
In choosing a program, one should also consider which has more useful elite benefits if flying is enough to make elite status. For example, if someone flies 25K miles a year and could thus earn silver elite of NW, CO, or DL, then the NW program may be the best because silver elites on NW earn a 50% bonus on top of actual miles while silver elites on CO and DL only earn a 25% bonus.
So if you fly DL most of the time and are silver elite you will only get a 25% bonus, but if you continue to fly DL but put the DL miles on NW, you will get a 50% bonus on the same flights. You can then redeem the NW miles for flights on DL!
One other thing the author of this article did not seem to grasp is what an elite bonus is. The definitiion he gave for elite bonus is actually the definition of class of service bonus.
''Join the frequent flyer program of every airline you fly, even if you think you'll only make one trip''
What is wrong with this is that every frequent flyer should concentrate their milage where they can. For those who fly less often, this allows them to build up milage for a free ticket quicker. For those who fly more often, it allows them to build up milage in a single program to quality for elite status and its benefits.
Thus, one should only use one ff program within easy alliance. NW, DL, and CO are in SkyTeam, and one can put miles from any one of them on any other airline within the alliance. The thing to do is choose one within that group and put any miles from all three on that one. US and UA are also in an alliance, and the same principle applies; choose one of them and put all your miles there. AA does not have any domestic alliance partners, so it is a seperate case. The bottom line is that the most efficient pattern is to join three programs, one among NW, CO, and DL, one among US and UA, and then AA. That covers the waterfront and maximizes your ability to concentrate your miles.
In choosing a program, one should also consider which has more useful elite benefits if flying is enough to make elite status. For example, if someone flies 25K miles a year and could thus earn silver elite of NW, CO, or DL, then the NW program may be the best because silver elites on NW earn a 50% bonus on top of actual miles while silver elites on CO and DL only earn a 25% bonus.
So if you fly DL most of the time and are silver elite you will only get a 25% bonus, but if you continue to fly DL but put the DL miles on NW, you will get a 50% bonus on the same flights. You can then redeem the NW miles for flights on DL!
One other thing the author of this article did not seem to grasp is what an elite bonus is. The definitiion he gave for elite bonus is actually the definition of class of service bonus.