FF Programs & Alliances

[kc2aqg]

Hi All-

So I'm still thinking about who to fly for this France trip (haven't booked the tickets yet) and I have a few questions about Frequent flier programs and alliances...My situation is that I have a bunch of flights and a couple thousand skymiles built up and I'd like to try to become an elite with Delta with all of the flying I'll be doing over the next year. So with that in mind, if I fly a Skyteam partner, how do the elite qualifying segments work for my Skymiles account? I am also pretty sure that I can credit Skymiles to my account in flying any Skyteam airline, but can someone confirm that for me as well? I'm just becoming a "road warrior" and I've never dealt with any of this before. Thanks!

Andy
KC2AQG

[T-Bird76]

I'm Star Alliance and One World Elite and anytime I fly any of their partner airlines my U.S Airways account and AA account get the full elite miles and segments credited to each.

So for example I fly CX I get AA miles, I fly AC or UA I get US miles. Just check, some fare codes won't give you miles on the partner carrier. If you traveling on biz you probably won't have to worry about that since most biz travel is booked at fare codes that will give you miles credit. To bad you have Skyteam their program blows big time. Star Alliance is by far the best alliance with the most choices and options.

[mirrodie]

He's such an elitist, that Toolman Tommy. ;)

[kc2aqg]

Tommy, can you tell me a few reasons why Star & OneWorld are better than Skyteam? Just purely out of curiosity.

I have a friend that works in Delta reservations out in SLC, so even if Skyteam is slightly worse than the other programs, I'll probably stick with Delta/Skyteam for most of my flying. From what I can see, Skyteam has better options out of the New York area than the other alliances, depending on where you go, or am I wrong about this?

[Winglets747]

I have a friend that works in Delta reservations out in SLC, so even if Skyteam is slightly worse than the other programs, I'll probably stick with Delta/Skyteam for most of my flying. From what I can see, Skyteam has better options out of the New York area than the other alliances, depending on where you go, or am I wrong about this?

If you do plan on sticking with SkyTeam, consider switching to a different FFP. DL miles are virtually impossible to redeem at normal levels (you usually have to spend twice the amount of miles :roll: ), which makes the miles less valuable than other SkyTeam partners, e.g. CO and NW. If you fly a lot of domestic segments on DL and are elite with a SkyTeam partner, depending on the program you may still be eligible for complimentary upgrades. You can also earn elite qualifying miles on your DL account from most CO and NW flights (CO can be a bit harder to get 100% elite qualifying miles on uber-cheap tickets).

I have a NW and DL account but have all SkyTeam flight miles credited to my NW account, even if they're DL flights. I have the DL account only because DL has promotions that I usually qualify for that involve zero flying (e.g. MyCoke Rewards).

[Winglets747]

Oh, and to answer your first question. ;)

For the basic Medallion program info, see:
http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_sky ... /index.jsp (http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_skymiles/benefits_at_glance/index.jsp)
and http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_sky ... /index.jsp (http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_skymiles/benefits_at_glance/mqm_calculations/index.jsp)

The first link shows you how many miles you need for each level (first level is 25K) and the second gives you detailed information about how many miles each airline's fare class earns. The whole 500 x 1 (1.5 or .5) thing just means to take the number of flight miles you would earn and multiply that number by .5, 1, or 1.5 to see how many Medallion miles you would get (which are different from "banked" miles--Medallion miles aren't the redeemable miles but only indicate what elite level you are).