Musings of The Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
Lufthansa Miles and More has recently added a flight statistical summary to the site for all high status members (HON Circle or Senator elite frequent flyer status). When you log in you get a summary of your recent flights credited to Miles & More.
Given I use flugstatistik.de / flightmemory.com, which is more comprehensive, I was naturally interested. Here are some screen shots kindly donated by a reader.
Last year Wendy Perrin asked her Perrin Post readers for their frequent flyer questions. 10 lucky readers won tickets to a preview of the Up in the Air movie starring George Clooney and got their questions answered by Randy Petersen, frequent flyer guru, with some help from others at Flyer Talk.
However, there were over 100 other great frequent flyer questions about programs, miles and status. There are some common themes to many questions and also some unique or quirky questions. With Wendy’s permission, I’ll be answering many of these questions over the coming weeks.
An update to my recent post on frequent flyer mileage expiry policies. Virgin America elevate has changed from miles expiring 18 months after earning to 18 months after last activity. While this is a welcome improvement and now matches some other frequent flyer programs such as American AAdvantage and United Mileage Plus, it is not particularly generous.
A beef which many members of American’s AAdvantage and British Airways’ Executive Club have long held is the restriction on earning and redeeming miles on each others flights between USA and UK. Ie AAdvantage members cannot earn or redeem on BA flights between USA and UK, and nor can Executive Club members earn or redeem on AA flights between USA and UK.
The restrictions are one step closer to being removed (in the future) with US Department of Trade’s announcement that it intends to approve the requested Anti Trust Immunity for Oneworld airlines (source BBC news). Very limited restrictions are included in the announcement of the decision, which also opens the way for a proposed joint venture between American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia.
Naturally Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson isn’t happy.
Prompted by US Senator Charles Schumer’s attempt to regulate frequent flyer program mileage expiry, the latest Inside Flyer includes a piece on mileage expiry of frequent flyer and frequent stay programs.
They not only look at the expiry policy, which varies widely between programs, but also at how well it is communicated. I agree with Randy’s wish that programs simply state the facts as they apply to each member.
Your miles will expire on {date} unless you {do this}.
Far too many programs either do not make the expiry explicit (forcing their members to hunt for the policy) or just state the policy and leave it to their members to work out what the expiry date actually is.
Here is a quick summary of frequent flyer program mileage expiry policies, in a subjective ranking from least to most restrictive. I’ve included rather more frequent flyer programs than are included in the Inside Flyer article, but I have not included any of the frequent stay programs expiry policies.
No expiry
Delta
Shanghai Airlines
TAP (with fee every 3 years)
No expiry for grandfathered miles
Asiana (miles earned before 30 September 2008)
Korean (miles earned before 30 June 2008)
No expiry with program issued credit card
Lufthansa et al
No expiry with elite status (any elite status unless otherwise mentioned)
Air France/KLM
Air New Zealand (gold and gold elite only)
ANA (diamond only)
Lufthansa et al
Malaysian (platinum only)
3 years after last activity
British Airways
Czech Airlines (redemptions do not count as activity)
Midwest
Spanair
Virgin Atlantic
2 complete calendar years after last activity
Frontier
2 years after last activity
Alaska (account cancellation is not necessarily enforced)
bmi
18 months after last activity
American
Continental (account cancellation is not necessarily enforced)
Hawaiian
Mexicana
Qantas (from 1 July 2010)
United
US Airways (can pay fee to extend 18 further months)
Virin America (from March 2010)
10 years after earning
Gulf Air
Korean (miles earned before 1 July 2008 are grandfathered) – announced but not yet implemented (currently 5 years expiry)
7 years after earning
Asiana elite members (miles earned before 1 October 2008 are grandfathered)
1 year after last activity or 7 years after earning, whichever comes first
Air Canada (at 7 years after earning can be extended for a fee)
5 years after earning
Asiana non-elite members (miles earned before 1 October 2008 are grandfathered)
SAS
4-5 years after earning
Air New Zealand
Qatar
3-4 years after earning
Emirates
Malaysian (can be extended 12 months for a fee)
South African
Thai
3 years after earning
Cathay Pacific
El Al
Lufthansa et al
Singapore Airlines (can be extended up to 12 months for a fee)
TAP (can be extended indefinitely, by 3 years at a time, for a fee)
Turkish Airlines
2 years after last flight activity
Aeroflot
2 years after last status earning flight (on own metal)
Aeromexico
20 months after last status earning
Air France/KLM
1 year after last earning
JetBlue (only earning from JetBlue flights or JetBlue Amex counts)
2-3 years after earning
ANA
2 years after earning
Air China
Southwest
2 years after earning with elite status or airline issued credit card
AirTran
1 year after earning
AirTran
6 months after last time earnt 2000+ miles
Spirit
I’m not sure why Aeromexico got an Inside Flyer thumbs up when Air France/KLM got a thumbs down. Sure Aeromexico has 24 months expiry versus 20 months, but neither are particularly long and Aeromexico requires earning on an Aeromexico flight in that period whereas Air France/KLM’s requirement is for any Sky Team flight.
I don’t think the Inside Flyer explanation of how Singapore Airlines miles expire is clear or correct. Expiry is based on the date each mile was earned, regardless of how much or little other account activity there has been since then.
Summary
Some of these expiry policies are downright mean. Anything tied to date of earning, or requiring activity more often than once every 2 years has the effect that the frequent flyer program provides very little value for infrequent flyers. It is natural and right for the programs to concentrate on members who are high value to the airline and try to save costs by eliminating low value memberships. However, it is worth them remembering that travellers’ circumstances change and an unduly harsh expiry rule can jeopardise a potentially valuable future relationship. Or, if Sen Schumer has his way, result in government interference. No one wants that!
Updated more than once.
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
The majority of Star Alliance frequent flyer programs (FFPs), including all the main ones, have more than one elite status level that is Star Alliance Gold. Oneworld has 3 elite status tiers across the alliance (although some programs do not have every alliance tier represented), so I’m not sure why Star Alliance couldn’t also introduce an extra tier with additional benefits over Star Alliance Gold.
Star Alliance Gold Plus
(AC) Aeroplan – Air Canada Super Elite
(NZ) Airpoints – Gold Elite
(OZ) Asiana Club – Platinum
(US) Dividend Miles – Platinum Preferred
(MS) EgyptAir Plus – Platinum
(SQ) KrisFlyer – PPS Solitaire, PPS
(NH) Mileage Club – Diamond
(UA) Mileage Plus – Premier Executive 1K
(LH) Miles and More – HON Circle
(TK) Miles and Smiles – Elite Plus
(CO) OnePass – Platinum Elite
(CA) Phoenix Miles – Platinum
(SA) Voyager – Platinum
Programs with only one Star Alliance Gold status
(FM) Crane Club
(BD) Diamond Club
(SK) Eurobonus
(TG) Royal Orchid Plus
(JK) Spanair Plus
(TP) Victoria
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
As part of a review of my frequent flyer strategy for the year ahead I have been thinking about lifetime elite status. If one year of elite frequent flyer status is good then a lifetime is better – travel can be focussed on purposes other than requalification of elite status.
As the term suggests, lifetime elite status gives status benefits for the rest of your life, or the life of the frequent flyer program, whichever ends first. In respect of alliance benefits there is an additional caveat that the host airline remains in the airline alliance.
In 2007 I achieved lifetime Oneworld Sapphire status through Qantas Frequent Flyer. I was also well on the way towards lifetime Star Alliance gold status through Singapore Airlines before they pulled the plug by grandfathering existing lifetime PPS Solitaire members and stopping any new qualification of the status. Since then I haven’t paid too much attention to lifetime statuses, since most of the programs I use either do not have lifetime elite status, or have a long time period qualification (in one case decades for me).
The last couple of years my travel patterns have changed markedly, and as I continue to seek out more difficult to reach places they will keep changing for the foreseeable future. Thus, removing the requalification hassle will be welcome. I haven’t yet finalised my approach but in the meantime, here are some lifetime elite airline statuses that are available together with their requirements.
Lifetime status earned by a period of time with high status
Air France/KLM – 10 years platinum for lifetime platinum (Sky Team elite+)
bmi – 10 years gold for lifetime gold (Star Alliance gold)
Spanair – 10 years gold for lifetime gold (Star Alliance gold)
Lifetime status earned by a period of time with high status and minimum status mileage
Lufthansa – 10 years senator/HON circle at or above age 60, and 1 million status miles for lifetime senator (Star Alliance gold)
SAS – 10 years gold at or above age 60 for lifetime gold (Star Alliance gold)
South African – 6 years of platinum earned by flying 100,000 miles per year on South African or by the requisite tier points (only South African flights count) for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
Lifetime status earned by lifetime status mileage (restricted)
Air Canada – 1 million status miles on Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz for lifetime elite (Star Alliance gold)
Air Canada – 2 million status miles on Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz for lifetime elite for yourself and a nominated partner (Star Alliance gold)
Air Canada – 3 million status miles on Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz for lifetime super elite for yourself and lifetime elite for a nominated partner (Star Alliance gold)
Air China – 1 million status miles on Air China for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
Alaska – 1 million status miles on Alaska and Horizon for lifetime gold
Asiana – 1000 flights on Asiana for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
EgyptAir – 1 million status miles on EgyptAir for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
Philippine – 1 million status miles on Philippine for million miler
United – 1 million status miles on Continental & United for lifetime premier gold (Star Alliance gold) for self and from 1 January 2012 annual premier gold for nominated partner
United – 2 million status miles on Continental & United for lifetime premier platinum (Star Alliance gold) and from 1 January 2012 annual premier platinum for partner (up until 31 December 2011 also lifetime Red Carpet Club membership for self)
United – 3 million status miles on Continental & United for lifetime premier 1K (Star Alliance gold) and from 1 January 2012 annual premier 1K for partner
United – 4 million status miles on Continental & United for lifetime global services (Star Alliance gold) and annual global services for partner, both from 1 January 2012
US Airways – 1 million status miles on US Airways for lifetime Silver Preferred* (Star Alliance silver)
* requires account to remain active to maintain the status, ie activity at least every 3 years.
Lifetime status earned by lifetime status mileage (unrestricted)
American – 1 million status miles for lifetime gold (Oneworld ruby) – from 1 December 2011
American – 2 million status miles for lifetime platinum (Oneworld sapphire) - from 1 December 2011
Asiana – 500,000 status miles (or 500 qualifying flights on Asiana) for lifetime diamond plus (Star Alliance gold)
Asiana – 1 million status miles for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
Continental – 1 million status miles for lifetime silver (Star Alliance silver)
Continental – 2 million status miles for lifetime gold (Star Alliance gold)
Continental – 4 million status miles for lifetime platinum (Star Alliance gold)
Delta – 1 million status miles for lifetime silver (Sky Team elite)
Delta – 2 million status miles for lifetime gold (Sky Team elite+)
Delta – 4 million status miles for lifetime platinum (Sky Team elite+)
Korean – 500,000 status miles for morning calm premium club (Sky Team elite+)
Korean – 1 million status miles for million miler club (Sky Team elite+)
Qantas – 7,000 status credits for lifetime silver (Oneworld ruby)
Qantas – 14,000 status credits for lifetime gold (Oneworld sapphire)
Lifetime status earned by lifetime mileage (any source)
American – 1 million miles for lifetime gold (Oneworld ruby) – until 30 November 2011
American – 2 million miles for lifetime platinum (Oneworld sapphire) – until 30 November 2011
Comments
Sky Team appears to be the easiest to earn lifetime top tier status. For me that isn’t much help as I very rarely fly Sky Team airlines.
Star Alliance has a number of options for lifetime top alliance tier status. Easiest would have been bmi, if you’ve already had bmi gold status. The expected merge into Lufthansa Miles & More within the next year scuppers hopes of lifetime status for most people. For someone starting now Asiana may be easiest except for those who predominantly fly United.
Oneworld has no lifetime top tier status. Lifetime middle tier status is most easily earnt with American since all mileage counts.
In all cases lifetime status requires a significant commitment and a lot of flying (except for American). So an important consideration is whether or not the lifetime status benefit will still be available for long enough to earn it, and whether the requirements may go up significantly in the meantime.
Something for me to think about.
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
bmi has announced some changes to UK and Ireland product and to their frequent flyer program Diamond Club (a favourite among many on Flyer Talk for the ease of getting elite status and the generous redemption rates).
From 27 January 2010, business class on UK domestic and Ireland flights will be replaced with Flexible Economy. The main changes here are that business class mileage will not be earned unless crediting to Diamond Club (and then only while they have special earning rate), seating is no longer 3-2, higher rate of APD tax will no longer apply (because there will no longer be a separate business cabin), and heavily discounted business class fares are gone.
Passengers who have business class tickets should not only get the extra APD refunded (as advised in the bmi notice), but also 30% refund of the fare as compensation for the downgrade under EU regulation 261/2004.
Also on UK domestic and Ireland flights the free meal for passengers with bmi elite status is gone. This was a prime differentiation with Aer Lingus on the Dublin to London route for example, and so the removal is rather unpopular.
The other change announced was that Blue Plus status will be removed. As this status provided few benefits other than the free meal which is now removed, this makes sense. The Wandering Aramean thinks the closure of Diamond Club will not be long in coming.
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
About 6 weeks ago I posted the news that Emirates Skywards will have a major overhaul effective 1 January 2010.
In short the frequent flyer program will be more closely aligned to revenue than it currently is. Earning rates depend on fare basis and the class of service factors for business and first class are higher.
Since the announcement, Emirates has drip-fed more detailed information including the new geographic zones (from 2010 both earning and redemption is zone-based), and new earning & depemption charts. After crunching the numbers on hundreds of routes, the conclusion is unmistakeable – this is a significant devaluation.
Geographic zones
The current program has 13 geographic zones for awards. From 1 January 2010 there will be 18 zones for both earning and redemption. Mostly these are unchanged from the existing zones, except:
The consequences of the America & Australasia zone splits are to make some awards cheaper for cities closest to Dubai, and some awards more expensive for cities further from Dubai.
Cyprus awards are more expensive.
Cities near to Dubai now have a small extra award mileage cost relative to the equivalent award to/from Dubai.
The new charts have a disclaimer that the figures are based on the most direct route between zones. Since Emirates has lots of tag flights (ie flights between cities other than Dubai), it is unclear how to interpret the new earning & redemption rates on some routes. For example between Asian Sub-continent south and Far East there are some direct flights (Male to Jakarta for instance) but between most city pairs travel would need to be via Dubai (eg Colombo to Seoul). How are the rates determined in those cases?
As the Emirates route map changes frequently, Skywards members will need to pay attention to changes in the zone earning rates. This could be a positive or a negative depending on changes to the routes and how quickly Skywards reacts. It certainly is a nuisance and is a drawback of using geographic zones so heavily in a frequent flyer program (incidentally Air NZ Airpoints also uses zones, but the issue is less relevant for them due to their much more limited route network and less active changes in that network).
Awards relatively unchanged
The good news is that on the whole award costs are the same in the new chart as the existing one. There are some increases (mostly associated with the zone changes) and some decreases.
This is particularly reassuring to those who have a sizeable stash of miles, given the short notice to cash them in on the old award charts if the rates had increased significantly.
The new ability to redeem one-way awards is a genuine improvement.
Upgrades costly
The new upgrade costs are much higher than the old costs. Upgrades from flexible fares are generally slightly higher than the old upgrade cost (with some slightly cheaper and some much higher), and upgrades from saver fares are generally 30-40+% higher than the old upgrade cost.
In most cases the new mileage cost to upgrade from economy saver to business is almost as high as the cost of a business award.
Earning rates slashed
The most significant change is to the earning rates. Emirates spun the changes as being an enhancement to the class of service bonus. While it is true the mileage earned for first class relative to economy class (flexible fares) is higher from 1 January 2010, this has been achieved by reducing almost all the earning rates as outlined below.
The 2009 earning rates are 100% mileage in economy, 150% in business and 200% in first.
The 2010 earning multiples are 50% for economy saver, 100% for economy flexible fares, 125% for business saver, 175% for business flexible fares, 200% for first saver and 250% for first flexible. However the base mileage earning between the zones is roughly 80-90% of the typical distance flown.
The result is marginally higher earning on flexible first and business fares, a 15% drop in earning on saver first fares, a 30% drop in earning on saver business fares and a whopping 55% drop in earning on saver economy fares. Some routes have smaller or bigger changes in earning than these generalisations. Most people fly on saver fares because the definition includes all fares not fully refundable, fares which are available for a limited period or are non-published, and all fares which include other airlines.
Status more difficult to achieve
In more PR spin, Emirates trumpeted that the elite status requirements were unchanged. Of course now we see the detail of the earning rates it is immediately obvious that from next year it will be harder to earn Silver or Gold status.
Summary
The changes remove most of the anomalies in the existing program, and at the same time represent a significant devaluation.
With both earning and redemption being fixed amounts based on zone and fare, the earn to burn ratios are relatively constant. The earn to burn ratios on Skywards from 1 January 2010 are generally in the 8-10% range, with some as poor as 5% and some as good as 15%. This represents much worse value than most US-based frequent flyer programs, for example.
These changes are big enough for me to rethink my plans for some premium longhaul trips on Emirates for 2010.
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
Wendy Perrin of Conde Naste Traveler has teamed up with frequent flyer guru Randy Petersen in a great giveaway. For the winners, not only will their frequent flyer questions be answered by experts but they also get tickets to the New York preview of the FF movie of the year “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney. There are 10 pairs of movie tickets, and at time of writing less than 40 entries, so the odds are great.
To enter post your FF problem or question over at The Perrin Post (you may want to subscribe to get Wendy’s great travel advice and news while you are there).
Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
