One World Air Miles
 

Hi All,
My boyfried and I have booked a round the world ticket with One World (BA etc). I', wondering if I'd be able to use my BA Airmiles card for this, or am I pushing my luck?
thanks

You should be able to earn miles on most, if not all, of your flights. RTW tickets usually have a high-fare code that earns miles, though you need to look at the specific fare class of each leg booked. BA and CX are quite stingy in giving out miles, but others are better.

Just want to add to what I said. Only Y, B, H or J class in BA economy earns 100% miles. G, K, L, M, N, O, Q, R, S, V earns only 25%.

I can't find infomation about flights on other carriers crediting to BA's miles, but you need to find out.

If a lot of your flights are on AA, JL, QF, etc, you may want to sign up for AA's FF program and credit the miles there. Going around the world means at least 25,000 miles - good enough for a free domestic coach in the US. You want to credit your miles the right way.

AAFF, our AA expert here, may help you. But you need to tell us the airlines you're flying and the fare code. It's often stated right behind the flight number. Or in the "class" category.

If you're flying in economy, you will book into fare code "L." You can see what miles will accrue to your FF account on this table: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...E/public/en_us

You'll earn 25% of the miles flown, but not less than 300 or 500 miles per leg depending on the airline.

If you're flying in business or first class, you'll earn lots more.

As rkkwan says, other airlines' plans (especially AA) are somewhat more generous than BA's, except where Iberia, Cathay Pacific and Aer Lingus are involved. So your choice of allocating miles to one or another program(me) would depend on which one counts a given flight higher. Complicated sounding, I know, but there are some potentially good benefits for trying to optimise your FF miles in a RTW trip.

WE have a visa card earning us AA miles, and are also enrolled in UA's FF program.

Since we now live in Taiwan, we're considering joining Cathay Pacific's Marco Polo Club, but they don't seem to give 100% mileage on economy. I've seen other reports that say they are stingy with miles and benefits.

We have a fair amount of travel to HK, Shanghai and Tokyo. Of course we can get AA miles from a Cathay flight, but AA doesn't do much in Asia.

Any experience? Any advice?

Thanks.

<b>rkkwan</b>,

JL is not a OW partner - yet...:-)

I agree with the above advice. It takes some research and consideration as to what plan you want the miles to go to. AAdvantage is probably the most generous in earning and spending miles so that may be a good option.

And to the other poster's concern that AA does not do much in Asia? It's true, but it has nothing to do with earning and spending AA miles. AA does very nice job exchanging a ticket on one of the OW or AAdvantage partners for the miles. One does not have to fly AA ever to enjoy the benefits of AAdvantage program.

As far as partners and mileage earning.

If one flies BA or QF or CX or? on a fare that the particular airline says it will give only 25% of the actual miles flown, it's not AA that makes that decision, it's the airline that you are flying. They are the ones that make the decision of how many miles you will earn even though the miles may be going into AADvantage.

The AA/Cathay mileage game is extremely dependent on the booking classes one purchases. Asiamiles (CX) is less generous than AAdvantage on some things, more on others (like rewards.) Not all CX economy classes earn anything on AA and v.v. Plus, frankly, living in Taiwan means that your routes on CX or AA are pretty limited.

JAL will be joining Oneworld around the beginning of the new year, so if it were me I'd spend a little time getting familiar with all three FF plans - AA, CX, JL - to see which one would work best for you given your travel patterns.

Perhaps I'll wait until JAL joins oneworld and look again. Sounds like good advice.

My daughter just flew from JFK to TPE via HKG on CX, and the fare was very cheap. That must be why CX would not allow her to earn any AA miles for that trip.

When I go online to look at AA flights to Taiwan, they show a schedule where AA flies to LAX and then uses a codeshare flight to TPE with EVA airlines. EVA is not a oneworld partner -- why wouldn't AA just route me on a CX flight?

I am more interested in miles and upgrades than other rewards, so if CX is more miserly in that regard, I may just wait around a bit.

Thanks for the help.

You can't upgrade on ANY AA partner's flights using AA miles, OneWorld or AAdvantage.

If you want to fly CX to TPE do a search &quot;by schedule&quot; and pick the flights you want.

AA have other non-oneworld partners. EVA is one. Going to TPE, you save yourself at least 4 hours by flying EVA non-stop, rather than CX to HKG and backtrack to TPE.

<i>I am more interested in miles and upgrades than other rewards, so if CX is more miserly in that regard, I may just wait around a bit.</i>

I think you should go visit (and sign up - free) at asiamiles.com. Unlike AA's program (or most others) Asiamiles allows upgrades on other carriers, including AA and BA as well as CX. For example, HKG-LHR, World Traveler Plus to Club World (premium economy to business) is 30K miles round trip - helluva deal. Look at the award charts and redemption mileage calculator on the site.

You may not accrue miles in Asiamiles as quickly as other programs (not universally the case - details matter) but it offers much more versatility than other programs.

OK - looks like a great idea. I had only been looking at the various airlines' websites. I am a bit confused though: AA and CX, for example, are ALSO AsiaMiles partners? Is this common?

30,000 round trip upgrade is indeed a good deal. thanks!

Asiamiles a CX FF program. [It also has the Marco Polo Club, but that's a paid service, and will only make sense for really frequent CX flyers.]

I think you're confusing FF program partners and alliance partners. Alliance partners are by default FF program partners, but that doesn't mean all fares can earn FF miles. As you find out, many cheap fares on CX don't earn AAdvantage miles. But there are other FF partners (like between AA and EVA) that aren't alliance.

oneworld (and the other alliance Star Alliance and Skyteam) is not a FF program. There is no such thing as a oneworld mile. Only individual airline has FF programs.

I mean, therefore for you, there's nothing to wait, for JL to join oneworld. You can already earn AAdvantage miles and Asiamiles by flying JL. And vice versa. Maybe there are some airlines in oneworld that is not currently a FF partner with JL that can help. But between AA, CX and JL, I doubt there will be significant changes among those three in terms of FF program earnings and operations.

it's important to mention that if one flies JL under JL flight number, one will only get &quot;spendable&quot; miles with AAdvantage. They do not count towards elite staus and most of the economy fares only earn 70% of actual miles flown.

oh, allow me to finish, :-)

until JL becomes full OW partner. Then, at the very least, whatever AA miles one earns will be elite qualifying, so it will change the realtionship between AA and JL.

I got very confused between the Marco Polo Club and Asia Miles -- I had thought Marco Polo was Cathay's only FF program. I appreciate the clarification.

If I booked on AA from JFK - TPE, they'd have me fly AA to LAX and then EVA to TPE. My assumption is that the whole flight would be eligible for AA FF miles. Correct?

But EVA's own FF partners are Delta, etc.

My husband is flying next week to China on CX, either business or full fare economy. So...He can either join AsiaMiles at this point, or continue to accrue miles on AA.

Wow. This stuff is confusing.

Here is some more confusion....:-D

The only way you can earn AA miles with EVA is if the flight is A coded. You have to buy the ticket from AA with AA flight number. You will still fly EVAS to TPE but AA will give you the miles as if you were flying AA metal, meaning, full miles elite earning miles and any elite bonuses if applicable. If your ticket has EVA flight number - NOTHING!!!

If your husband is flying CX on a full fare or business class ticket, he will get full AA miles according to the class of service. These miles are elite qualifying and also will include any elite bonuses if applicable.

Flights with <i>AA flight numbers</i> will earn miles and elite qualifying points regardless of the carrier. If the ticket shows another airline's number, then miles/points will accrue only to the extent shown on the aa.com AAdvantage Partners charts. Like AAFF says, for instance, JAL flight nos. (for now) will not have the same benefit as an AA flight on JL metal. In general, for AA flights booked from the US to TPE that connect at LAX or SFO, the EVA flight will carry the AA codeshare no. But it's important to check the actual ticket to make sure.

Just as an addition, I have Asia Miles and the main drawback for me is that the miles automatically expire after 3 years regardless of activity.

Geordie

Asia Miles can be renewed for another 3 years beyond their original expiration. However, there's a fee of $10 per 2000 miles.

In my admittedly limited use of Asia Miles, I've also found that they have weird restrictions on which routings qualify for mileage credit and which do not. For example, they gave me credit for SHA-CKG but not CKG-SHA on MU (same fare class). I spoke with a couple of different agents thinking it was a mistake and they all told me no mileage credit for CKG-SHA :-/