Completly lost in the FFP jungle....

[FooMonkee]

First of all i cant say how happy I am for finding you guys, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure these FFP out, seems that I might have found a place where I can get some well needed help at last.

Since a few years back im living togheter with a kiwi, im myself a Swede and we are at this point living in Sweden with our 9 month old son. We try to go down to NZ atleast every second year if our finances allow us to do so. So far we have enrolled in whatever FFP the company we are flying with have so at this point we have accounts with singapore, malaysian, SAS, AirNZ, Cathay, thai... we have been really bad at keeping track of all this and we now realize that we should probably get smart about these FFP´s.
So we need some help to figure out which FFP to join to get as much out of it as possible. When we travel we go economy class (money comes out of our own pockets) I do travel some in work but with a cheap boss its always with low fair companies like ryanair or easyjet.

What we want out of the FFP:
- Lounge access (can be hard to travel with small children)
- possible upgrades
- Maybe free trips since we do have friends living in different countries.

other valid information;
-We will in the future relocate to NZ
-We have so far let the wallet decide which company we fly with, cheapest offer has overruled previous experience and bonuses.

So what are your thoughts at this? We are happy for any help in this matter!

Kind regards,

Staffan

[munitalP]

Hej

Welcome to AFF!

My advice is simple, in your situation I would enrole with Lufthansa or keep using SAS infact any star alliance airline you can forsee most of your future travel with! When you finally move to NZ, Air NZ is also a * Alliance partner.

From what you say about your travel, I would be putting Kroners aside to purchase lounge access - I don't know cost or availability ex Sweden but in Australia, Qantas Club (oneworld) is going to cost about $400 AUD per year + Joining fee. I believe that the Koru Club (Air NZ - * Alliance) will cost approx the same.

Upgrades - Basing this on my Qantas experience, upgrades are based on Status, so (excluding chairmans club - a private invited club), Platinum, Gold, Qantas Club, Silver, Bronze is the order in which upgrades are given (also assuming everyone is on the same ticket class). Without doing a tonne of flying and earning a high status, upgrades are not something a once or twice a year traveller should be contemplating too much.

I hope Sweden is not too cold - I have spent some time in Ludvika & Borlange in the past - a beautiful country even if its -30 deg in Feb

Mr!

Hej Da

[FooMonkee]

Thanks for your quick reply. The biggest benefit with joining SAS is the fact that I can connect a Mastercard to it. Otherwise we rarely, if ever travel with SAS since the dont fly far enought. We do have a short trip to London and from there we could catch pretty much any airline in the world, are there any benefits of joining an company thats not on "your" home market?

And if we look at the *A companies are there any that will bring as quicker and easier up in levels, since we dont fly that much?

@MunitalP: We live a bit south of Ludvika/Borlänge in Örebro so we are snowless at this point (got a white X-mas atleast) but got a decent -6 degrees. Ludvika/borlänge is kind of strange place for an aussie to end up, did u work for one of the mining companies?