Swiss RTWesque flights in J who to allocate to

[gethsemene]

Hi guys,

I am an ex QF gold FF who is now on a slow decline (will be bronze from beginning of may) due to work changing to CFOD, I have approx 60K of qf points 15k of virgin and by the start of this trip no status/miles with either. I have little preference between them as the QF lounge at HBA (where I'm based) is only slightly better than the non existant virgin one (due 2014 expected 2050).

I have booked flights in J with swiss in June as follows:

HBA-MEL-HKG on QF flight numbers in J (I class)

HKG-ZRH-LHR-ZRH-JNB on Swiss in J (P class)

JNB-SYD-HBA on QF in J (I Class)

I am trying to work out the best use for these points, I travel roughly 10times a year from HBA to perth/adelaide/sydney/mel and once a year to the UK in Y or J. The points normally get spent on upgrades/holiday flights to SE asia...

I am working out whether to load up QF and join Kris Flyer for the swiss points then transfer to virgin which will net me no status initially and will be borderline if I will fly enough with QF to gain status before next April. Or spend $200 to do a status run with AA and get status that way and try and maintain somehow (USA holiday maybe)?

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance, Ben

 

[casanovawa]

If you had QF Gold before, if only you could've status matched, tried to leverage it that way...

 

[Mattg]

I think that clearly the best thing to do for your upcoming trip is to credit the Swiss flights to KrisFlyer, for transferring to Velocity. You won't earn VA SCs but you'll get the Velocity points at least this way.

For the QF flights you'll earn 360 SCs by crediting to Qantas FF - more than enough for Silver status and past half way (back) to Gold. If you plan to continue flying a fair bit within Australia in the coming years, and this would set you up for earning Gold status, then it may be worthwhile.

Another option as you suggest could be to start an AA Platinum status challenge. With your flights, you would earn more than enough to satisfy the 12,500 EQM requirement to achieve Platinum (equivalent to QF Gold) status for one year. In fact, you could still earn AA Platinum by crediting just the MEL-HKG and JNB-SYD flights to AA, with the domestic connections earning points with QF if you would prefer. The AA points are valuable - possibly the best use would be a HBA-xMEL-PER flight in QF J. Although, this will soon cost 20K AA miles (up from the current 17.5K miles) - just over 1,000 more than you will earn from this trip. You could however buy the extra points to make up the difference.

AA status would be valid for about a year. You would need to travel on 4 AA marketed flights within the next year (and earn the required EQM) to requalify. This is impossible to do without visiting the USA, so keep this in mind! But even if you don't think you would be able to retain it, you could then leverage your AA status and get a status match with another airline before dropping back down.

 

[gethsemene]

Thanks guys, this is brilliant