Asian FF Programs

[sadlier]

Looking for some opinions/advice from the gurus here. Hopefully the information I seek will be helpful to others.

I am Melbourne based and hold gold status with SG having loaded points there rather than UA for the last year. But I normally travel economy and get frustrated by the way SQ favour their PPS members and give virtually no respect to their KF gold pasengers. They even have separate lounges in Singapore and the new KF gold lounge at T3 does not even have showers/toilets.

I have a major client in Singapore and frequently hub out of there to other parts of SE Asia.

I normally go to the states only once a year so the 100% PE bonus is not a big incentive to go back to UA.

I am also one of the many ex-Ansett customers who have 'this guy used to fly Ansett' tattooed to my forehead and only visible to Qantas staff so QF is not high on my list.

I can see three choices:

1. Switch to Thai but they do not seem to have the flight frequencies out of Australia.

2. Switch the miles back to UA and use Emirates up and down from Melbourne. Again the flight times are not very convenient.

3. Switch to Cathay for the asian stuff and use QF if I have to go MEL SIN. At least I know that CZ give good support to Marco Polo members in economy.

I don't see a lot of discussion here comparing CX SQ and TG programs and would appreciate some comments.

[Evan]

CX is good from what people have said, i considered a move across to them since i was doing a lot of flying with them (I am based in Singapore most of the year last year and this year) but then i found some prices went up and i ended up not using them so much so decided against it.
CX treat Maco Polo elites very well from what i have seen.

Thing is with CX you get the lounges you get with QF in all locations (excluding the Chairmens lounge for QF and concord room for BA), so your not getting accesss to anything new, just a different program.

TG & SQ are best discussed by others who fly *A a lot more, i fly them even less now and have dropped all my SQ status back to nothing, if i fly SQ its usually been much better for me in shedule or its been in J. My opinion is that the TG lounges are nothing special at all, but other seem to think they are great.

E

[sadlier]

I know from experience some years ago and some discussions with colleagues from Hong Kong that the Marco Polo program really does support their frequent travellers in whatever class very well.

Upgrades are quite frequent, they guarantee seat availability, they isolate the front of economy for MP members and have events like theatre and golf days in the major Australian cities.

As far as I can see QF, SQ and TG do none of this.

[Evan]

I know from experience some years ago and some discussions with colleagues from Hong Kong that the Marco Polo program really does support their frequent travellers in whatever class very well.

Upgrades are quite frequent, they guarantee seat availability, they isolate the front of economy for MP members and have events like theatre and golf days in the major Australian cities.

As far as I can see QF, SQ and TG do none of this.

Actually QF do reserve seats at the front of Y for there high status people. They do guarantee seat availability for platinum's, they do do movie nights etc for frequest flyers. (not heard of many gold days etc but you never know).

But the upgrades are not so common. They wont just upgrade you because they have free seats, then again i am reasonably sure CX wont either, but maybe more often than QF.

E

[BlacKnox]

Presumedly you've seen this page.

I'll comment on some of your points though I'm certainly not an expert/ guru.

They even have separate lounges in Singapore and the new KF gold lounge at T3 does not even have showers/toilets....

With all respect, to me this is sound economic policy re: showers, though the (absence of) toilets seems a bit harsh.

I have a major client in Singapore and frequently hub out of there to other parts of SE Asia.

If that's the case, then to me it seems sensible to stay with SQ.

I am also one of the many ex-Ansett customers who have 'this guy used to fly Ansett' tattooed to my forehead and only visible to Qantas staff so QF is not high on my list.

I hear you, I hear you, I hear you.

1. Switch to Thai but they do not seem to have the flight frequencies out of Australia.

Then if time/ convenience is important, then TG isn't an option.

2. Switch the miles back to UA and use Emirates up and down from Melbourne. Again the flight times are not very convenient.

See point 1.

3. Switch to Cathay for the asian stuff and use QF if I have to go MEL SIN. At least I know that CZ give good support to Marco Polo members in economy.

But if you're flying a lot out of SIN in Y, you're not going to get into the CX F lounge (through their program either).

Your frustation seems reasonable. If you're a good customer, why not write to SQ about this? My 2c worth, good luck.

[sadlier]

Blacknox - thanks for the page (I had not seen it before) and the comments.

I think you are right in that I need to take some of this up with SQ and see how they respond.