Mileage program comparisons

Nancy Tan of Fresno, California, wrote, “I would be very interested in reading comparisons of airlines’ frequent-flyer-mileage programs from travelers who are members of more than one airline’s loyalty program.”

We asked those of you who are members of more than one airline’s or airline alliance’s frequent-flyer program to tell us which one you prefer and why. What are some specific differences between the programs? When you have a choice of airlines on a particular route, do you make your decision based on the mileage program and, if so, for what reason(s)?

A few responses were printed in last month’s issue, and we have more for you below.

My wife and I have been using miles to travel business class all over the world and have been successful up to this date. We have gone to India and Tanzania and across Europe and South America, and it has been worth the hassle, as long trips in coach are no longer tolerable. 

We are very pleased with the United Airlines program and have used them for most of our trips. 

On the other hand, we have found using American Airlines (AA) and its partner British Airways to be a nightmare. We are going to use up our remaining miles with them on our next trip and then cancel our AA credit cards and stop collecting AA miles.

We have found British Air impossible to deal with. Often, when they have a connection in London, it means flying into Gatwick Airport and out of Heathrow!

In addition, they charge a huge fuel surcharge, and then they have the nerve to charge you for seat selection unless you wish to wait until 24 hours prior to departure. They once put us on standby when their website was down and we couldn’t check in within the 24-hour window, so from then on we have been paying for our seats. 

Enough said.

Martin Schwartz
Brentwood, CA

I wanted to weigh in on this subject, myself.

I used to be a big fan of American Airlines’ frequent-flyer program. Their staff knocked themselves out finding flights to get me where I wanted to go. But that has changed. 

Their miles are easier to accumulate these days, but they also seem to be worth less. Customer service is still good, but the representatives can only do what the program, itself, allows. Also, they do not offer an economy-plus fare.

Trying to book seats on American (AA) has become a bit of a nightmare. A frustrating experience trying to get seats left me with the feeling that unless you are willing to be stuck in either the back row or in a middle seat, you have to pay extra! I don’t know whether this is always true.

Early in 2016, I tried to book two tickets to Australia/New Zealand as soon as the window opened for the dates I wanted. AA had no seats available whatsoever for that destination, even though I was receiving emails advertising the direct route they had recently added. 

In December 2016, I tried to book two tickets from the US to Taiwan and from Singapore back to the US. No luck again! We could get to Taiwan, but, coming back, we would have had to spend around 150,000 miles each, due to the convoluted routing and the lack of saver-award seats.  

I finally booked two one-way tickets in business class on American from the US to Taiwan, then paid for tickets on China Southern Airlines from Taiwan to Singapore, then flew China Southern from Singapore to San Francisco a week later, which seemed to qualify as a round-trip ticket.

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United, on the other hand, seems quite straightforward. I have been able to exchange miles for tickets for where and when I wanted to go. They do have an economy-plus class; it’s in a smaller section in front of the main cabin, which suits me just fine. 

United’s website conveniently offers the opportunity to upgrade with cash even while booking with miles. On the few occasions when the itinerary changed at the last minute and I didn’t use the upgrade, the amount was automatically credited back to my credit card. 

I finally purchased my Australia/New Zealand tickets from United for a reasonable price, and there were no problems using miles for an upgrade. The routing was good, and everything was done easily online. My plan, at this point, is to accumulate more United miles.

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During the last few years, I began accumulating British Airways (BA) miles because they offered such a great deal through their credit card. 

The first time I used BA miles for business-class tickets, the routing was terrible and the fees, outrageous. But that hasn’t happened the last couple of times I booked with them — in May 2016, one way from Athens to San Francisco, and in September 2016, one way from Los Angeles to London Heathrow (having cruised in the other direction in each case) — and the seats seemed easier to come by than with AA. I also was able to use BA miles to fly within Europe.   

Like AA, BA has a period during each shoulder season when they lower the number of points required for a seat. 

In April 2016, we ended up in BA’s economy class by mistake (mine). My husband and I were pleasantly surprised by how comfortable we were, though we are not large people. Another time, I paid to upgrade to BA’s economy-plus and was very pleased with the footrest and the business-class food.

The one disadvantage of flying BA, for me, is that, when flying out of my hometown, which BA does not fly to, BA does not allow you to book a flight with their partner airline using reward miles, even though you can do that on a paid ticket.

Nancy Tan, Fresno, CA 

My husband and I had each saved up a lot of miles on both American Airlines (AA) and United (UA). I can’t remember the exact amount of miles on each, but I think it was in the 300,000 range. (We had fewer UA miles, but the two amounts were pretty close.) At age 83, we thought we should use them.   

We used AA miles for a Los Angeles-Johannesburg, South Africa, round trip in business class on their partner airline Qatar Airways in May 2016. There was a stopover in Doha, Qatar, both ways, and we spent the night at the airport hotel each time. Everything went smoothly, and we had two delightful flights.

On another trip, in October 2016, we wanted to fly business class from Los Angeles to Jakarta, Indonesia, but the closest that United could get us was Singapore, and we had only enough miles to buy us one-way tickets.

My husband did not have quite enough miles and had to buy some from me at a ridiculous price. We then had to pay separately for our tickets on to Jakarta on AirAsia. We also had to buy our return tickets, on China Airlines, from Yangon, Myanmar, to Los Angeles.

But I’m not finished. When we arrived at the check-in counter on flight day, the UA agent asked, “Have you rescheduled?” We asked what she meant, and she told us that the Los Angeles-Singapore leg of the flight had been canceled! This was the first we had heard about it. I wonder when, within the six months during which we had our reservations, the cancellation happened. 

It took the UA agent quite a while to find a flight for us, but she did, one out of San Francisco (SFO). We live in Reno. Because the Los Angeles flight was at 11 a.m., we had flown down the night before and spent the night in a hotel. The SFO flight was in the afternoon; we could have flown there the same day.

I think you can guess which airline’s mileage program we prefer.  

Brenda Milum, Reno, NV

In the past, my husband and I have belonged to mileage programs of American Airlines as well as Southwest, Delta and United. I have since dropped Delta and United because we found we were not using them enough.

I want to talk about American’s mileage program. We have been members for about 25 years. Their credit card was our main credit card, thus we accrued a lot of miles. We used them as our main airline and often were able to use our miles to upgrade to business class for long trips. It was a match made in heaven… until the last few years. 

American has gotten very stingy about our being able to use miles to get tickets, and as for upgrading, forget it.

We had two incidents which really soured us on American. We used miles to purchase a ticket domestically. On that itinerary, there was a transfer (by train) to another terminal as part of the trip, and they gave us only 45 minutes to do so. We explained that my husband was disabled and couldn’t make it. They basically told us, ‘Too bad; you are using mileage.’

Knowing there was room on a later flight, we called several times, with no luck. It was only on the morning of the flight, when we called again, that they agreed to give us a later connecting flight.

A few months before that incident, in September 2015, we were in London going on to Azerbaijan. We overnighted in London and got to the airport early for our flight when my husband, waiting for a wheelchair, saw that our flight had been canceled. We had never been notified! 

At the British Airways desk (our ticket was written by American, but the flight was operated by British Air), we were told we were too late to be given seats on any morning flights and we would have to wait until an evening flight. 

American would not pay for a day room, allow us lounge access or give us any kind of compensation. Because of my husband’s disability, we could not spend 12 hours in the airport. We wound up paying for a day room.

After being hassled about flights that we had paid for using mileage points plus not being able to upgrade, we decided we were giving up on American. We still have our cards and some mileage, but we no longer are tied to them and use different airlines. 

By the way, for our main credit cards, we have switched to the Chase Preferred Visa card (two points for each dollar spent on dining and travel purchases) and the Capital One Venture card (two points for each dollar spent on purchases).

With the Capital One card, miles are based on dollar values. For example, I have 35,218 miles, which would give me $352.18 toward travel. If I sent them a receipt for an airline ticket or a cruise or a hotel stay (purchased with the Capital One card, of course), they would credit my account the cost of the trip by using up my points, if I had enough of them to cover it.

(If I wanted actual cash back, I would get only half the points. In other words, for the 35,218 miles, I would get back only $176, which would be silly to do.)

Capital One also has a travel department that can help in purchasing tickets ($25 per person) by phone plus an online travel department (free).

Helen Wolkow
Glenwood, IL