Airline Loyalty Schemes

pinkteddybear

We want to go to Thailand in June and are doing everything we can to scrimp and save and chip away at our flight expense at the moment. I was thinking of signing up to an airline loyalty/reward scheme for future holidays. We will be going to somewhere in the Middle East or South East Asia again at around Christmas 2008.

Is it worth joining someone like Etihad or Emirates to build up points with them or would we really have to be regular long haul customers to get any benefit at all?

Thanks.

M4RKM

it took me 4 return trips on one airline (US Airways), to get a free return flight... all in all it was worth it..

odowdchr

Emirates is alright if you go fairly often.
Normally it's about 4 Far East trips to get an economy return to Dubai.
The real benefits are when they have special offers on the miles and you actually want to go to the destination, or can go at an offpeak time when the deals are on.
The standard benefits are meant to be quite stingy (from hearsay, no experience of booking them).
You normally get a "first flight bonus" if you register at Skywards.

pinkteddybear

That seems worth doing then I think.

Etihad is slightly cheaper for our trip in June, but I'm hoping to start a new job soon that will allow me to do a lot of travelling, so if Emirates are offering free flights then it's happy days!

:beer:

chalky_bertie

Have a look HEREand they give very good information out.

We are in BA's Exec Club and it took as fair while to earn enough miles to get us what we wanted. Obviously not been often flyers but go long haul whenever we do go on holiday. We have used them mainly to upgrade from either Wt to WT+ and recently started flying Business and using the points to upgrade from WT+ to Club. BA and AMEX have a scheme where you get a free ticket if you spend a certain amount on their credit card and have the miles to do so. It is a hard slog to spend the relevant amount to trigger the free ticket but then you also have to enough miles aswell. Used this to purchase 2 return tickets in Business class to Miami, just paying the taxes etc saving around £4700!

Whatever you do make sure you stick to just one airline.

richardw

odowdchr wrote: »

The real benefits are when they have special offers on the miles and you actually want to go to the destination, or can go at an offpeak time when the deals are on.

Good point, I always keep my eye on these,

arealhighlander

Always, always get your tickets based on the price you can get the ticket for, rather than specifically keeping going with one carrier just to get miles.

Their points should only be secondary in your consideration. i.e. if you happen to be flying with them anyway, get a FF card with them. Many airlines have joined alliances e.g. Star alliance includes Luftansa, BMI, SAS etc. So if you fly on one you get miles to spend on any of them.

Many cheap tickets will get you little or no points, but to get full points the tickets are either Business or full fare economy and cost a heck of a lot more.

With the likes of BA, you have to do a lot of full fare or Business flying for it to be worth while.

Wife and I have flown twice Business class from London to Bangkok with Qatar airways. We now have enough miles for 2 return flights London-Doha.