Sod the Airlines - What About My Frequent Flyer Miles?

[The Guvnor]

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/money/graphics/2001/10/20/calex20.gif

[Evening Star]

Beyond being an overt loyalty programme, I cannot see the point of frequent flyer points. Will not miss them if they disappear in the current airline turmoil.

(And despite my po-faced opinions, I do think the Alex cartoon strip is excellent.)

[DX Wombat]

Evening Star, you may be rich enough not to need to worry about Frequent Flyer points but I'm not and I've nearly got enough for a free round trip to visit my family. On my pay that's a great saving so I really would miss them. :eek: :eek:

[sanjosebaz]

I fail to see what is wrong with "overt loyalty". I would have thought that in the current climate, airlines will be clammering for all the loyalty they can get. If that means having to give the odd free flight or upgrade in exchange for a squillion paid trips, so be it :rolleyes:

[PAXboy]

In the past couple of weeks, I have had a series of posts and e-mails from carriers of whom I am a member of their FFM. All are dropping the number of miles needed for certain routes or offerring upgrades. They might hope that I will then pay for a second seat (or the children) and thus bring revenue.

They might just get higher loading figures, which will please the shareholders.

Persoannly, I like FFM schemes and have had many flights on them. I am about to go to South Africa return in Club for only the price of airport taxes.

If they dropped FFMs, would we see the ticket price go down? Nope!

[lame]

There you go, it works on this forum......

I have currently lost over 250000 FFP because of the collapse of Ansett, Star Alliance will not honour them, even though many were earned on Star Alliance Airlines other than Ansett. :mad:

[PAXboy]

My sympathies, lame. I have a rewards flight booked with Swiss Air in February and hope that they are still flying. Given that Sabena are the other main Qualiflyer partner, there is a good chance of waving that trip good-bye.

[Evening Star]

DX Wombat

Sadly, I am far from rich :rolleyes: ! My attitude is more sour grapes because every time I collect any worthwhile points on a frequent flyer programme somehow I either lose the points through time or my travel plans never quite fit into how I can use the points :rolleyes: :rolleyes: . Then each time I just wish the flight was a bit cheaper and that points did not exist. Oh well, story of my life.

[DX Wombat]

That's sad! However, if you travel to Oz at all why not join QF's FF programme - no loss of points for time as long as you remain active. I can't remember offhand what they consider "active" but it may be woth looking into as, if you book through QF any Oneworld Partner flights count for points. Can't do any harm to have a look. :)

[PAXboy]

I think 'active' means collecting inside a 12 month period. This includes car hire and hotel stays and I use this to keep some of mine 'ticking over'.

Virgin Atlantic have also gone over to this idea.

[The Guvnor]

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/money/graphics/2001/11/06/calex06.gif