a change in star gold strategy -- asiana cuts points on united metal

i used to really like asiana's mileage club scheme because it was an easy way to access star gold status. you would need just 20,000 miles in two years in order to achieve asiana gold (star silver) status, and 40,000 miles in two years in order to achieve asiana diamond (star gold). This served me well: i have had 4 years of star gold status because of them, and have a membership card that's valid until the end of 2016 left to go. star gold status is really quite valuable.

a few years ago, air canada's flex fares (previously named "tango plus") were mostly cut down to 50% elite qualifying miles (EQM) even when they earned 100% in air canada's own program. their tango fares still earned nothing domestically.

 

(note that not the minimum mileage for international routes is not actually 250 miles as they will later state. i had a tango fare flight YVR-PDX that only earned 125 miles. they cited 500 x 25% = 125 miles and would not budge.)


therefore, around 2012, the vast majority of my transborder and international flights went to united, because all fares would earn 100%. that was until i saw their sudden change on march 1, 2015. now, most of their discount economy flights will only earn 50-75% elite qualifying miles.

therefore, for someone with travel patterns like myself (based in north america, the majority of my travel being based in north america), i would need to fly 40,000 actual miles a year on united or flex-fare air canada (40,000 physical miles x 50% = 20,000 elite qualifying miles per year x 2 year requalification period = 40,000 elite qualifying miles). if i flew just 10,000 more miles a year, i would get premier gold status.

the rule for elite status is to try to earn the highest level of elite status that you can. the next rule is to try to earn that status on the airline that you will fly on the most as they will generally give the most benefits.

so where do i go from here?
for this year, i have opted to credit my points to united. united offers me the benefit of:

• 100% status miles on united flights
• 100% status miles on all flex fares on air canada
• 25% status mile on all domestic tango fares (and 100% on international/transborder tango fares)
• 100% status miles on almost all ANA flights who i will be traveling on when i go to asia later this summer (they offer 25% redeemable miles on my K-fare, although this is no better than any other program).
• complimentary economy plus seating

let's see if we can make it to 50k this year.

asiana club's mileage redemptions aren't too bad

i use asiana's asiana club as my star alliance frequent flyer program of choice. i do this because it makes star gold status easily attainable at 40,000 miles over two years. most frequent flyer programs offer star gold status at 50,000 miles per year. the downside is that the benefits pretty much stop at star gold status. but if the alternative is star silver, or worse, nothing, then i'd rather take this.

it's often said that the cost of award redemption on asiana is quite high. it's harder to earn miles on (i.e., lack of generous bonus miles for top tier members compared to the american based programs), and the redemption options themselves are quite pricey.

they used to have a distance based award chart for star alliance partners, but this has now changed to zones as of june 5, 2014. i was browsing through the potential options and found that some are actually quite good for a north american traveler.

• trips to hawaii cost 35,000 in economy and just 55,000 in business (compared to 45,000 and 80,000 on air canada, respectively).
• trips to northeast asia and southeast asia in business class are 120,000 and 135,000 miles, respectively (compared to 150,000 and 155,000 miles on air canada, respectively)
• trips to europe are 50,000 and 80,000 in economy and business class, respectively (compared to 60,000-75,000 and 90,000-105,000 miles on air canada, respectively)

on top of these slight savings, there are incredible opportunities for stopovers with asiana. the rules, as per their website, state that you may have up to 8 segments in your entire itinerary (e.g., YVR-SIN via LAX and HKG count as 4 segments). you are also allowed to have up to 7 stopovers greater than 24 hours. the old rules stated that you could only have one stopover per country, which greatly limited the utility of the stopover rule. however, that rule appears to have disappeared.

other benefits include 50% miles for one-way trips, and, as of june 5, 2014, the ability to book some reward flights online.

it makes me feel better that the miles that i've accumulated for the sake of star alliance status aren't going to be of a poor value after all!