Effectiveness of Frequent Flyer Programme (FFP)

[liujw]

Hello to all the Singapore Expat members out there. I am currently doing a study on the effectiveness of Frequent Flyer Programme (FFP) in retaining the loyalty of business travellers based in Singapore. I hope you are able to help me with this survey. With your help, I hope to generate relevant studies for airlines to improve their services for you. Here is the link, http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform ... ekJhbHc6MA. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Strong Eagle]

I'm not loyal to any of the buggers. SQ cancels unused mileage and they cost too much for business class.

Thai has great prices and terrible schedule into LAX.

Cathay Pacific is good but everything goes through HK first.

I absolutely will not fly any American airline unless I have no choice... like in the US... worst possible service.

I've got the most miles on EVA... good schedule to LAX and good prices.

I fly price and schedule. IF I can build miles so much the better... but no FFP program retains me.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Funny enough, I'm much the same.

[ozchick]

I've just booked my free return flight to Oz! My only costs were taxes of about $300 so I've done very well. All this with my silver Krisflyer points (Singapore Air). This is just a result of the fact that I only fly daytime flights to anywhere, including Oz and a few other destinations as well, so I get no option other than Sg Air. In any case their prices are always comparitively good unless I want to fly at night, and I don't. Will check out the survey.

[Splatted]

I'm not loyal to any of the buggers. SQ cancels unused mileage and they cost too much for business class.

And they cancel your frequent flyer membership. Very frustrating.

The old number doesn't get recycled, so I don't understand why they don't allow for reactivation of old memberships. My old number was so much easier to remember than the current one.

I actually emailed customer service recently to try and get the old membership number back. Totally unhelpful. I am sure it would take no longer than 20 seconds to make the edit by an IT guy at SIA.

[Splatted]

Qantas's ffp used to be quite good.
- you can transfer points to relatives
- you can spend points on things other than flights, eg supermarket credit
- in the past , points never expired... they recently changed this


What sucked however were that in original redemption system, you could never find a flight on the day you wanted unless you booked 12 months or more in advance.

The new redemption system was a lot more flexible in terms of booking, but they made the point conversion prices too expensive that it wasn't worth it.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how good a FFP is if an airline totally blows. I vowed never to use Qantas again after a 4 hour delay on a flight (which seems to happen very frequently from what I have been following on the news on the Melbourne to Singapore route)

[aster]

FFPs are good for status, especially if you can clock up 50k miles in a year in economy (or less if you fly business). On SQ this gives you Star Alliance Gold status which is equivalent to 20kg extra luggage and lounge access (for 1 guest as well) regardless of which class you travel in.

The downsides are that miles expire after a couple of years (though they can be renewed at a price), and redeeming is not possible in business on the A380/777-300ER (the planes with the new interiors) unless you want to burn double the amount of miles normally required.

Personally I'm moving away from KrisFlyer to BMI's Diamond Club. You only need activity on your account once in 24 months to keep your account active, and miles never expire. On top of that it offers the best way to get flight awards for your miles as they have a "miles&cash" option where you can use a bit of both and really stretch your miles.

But the main reason I'm moving is family membership, which Diamond Club offers. Instead of my wife and child having their own miles (that are not transferable within KrisFlyer!) we can now pool all our miles together. Makes everything so much better.

So although most of my flights are on SQ, I will still go with another airline's FFP.

[Saint]

I use Krisflyer as my Company only uses SQ for business travel, also you can earn point uses a Citibank credit card.

[ScoobyDoes]

Personally I'm moving away from KrisFlyer to BMI's Diamond Club. You only need activity on your account once in 24 months to keep your account active, and miles never expire. On top of that it offers the best way to get flight awards for your miles as they have a "miles&cash" option where you can use a bit of both and really stretch your miles.

But the main reason I'm moving is family membership, which Diamond Club offers. Instead of my wife and child having their own miles (that are not transferable within KrisFlyer!) we can now pool all our miles together. Makes everything so much better.

You'll have to watch out for that one in the longer term since Lufthansa's purchase of BMI there might become a re-alignment of the Diamond Club to that of LH's own FFP, which centres around the Premium Passenger.


Personally i am KF but only because in Singapore i can add Credit Card points to the program, not because i always fly SQ. There are some cards in SG that can credit to Thai's Orchid program but it is only one or two, all others will put to either AsiaMiles or KF so from that point of view i had little choice.

OneWorld from SG is not as supportive as *A so my move to SG meant i had to leave the CX program where i was happy for many years.

The KF program in comparison is not very good.

[aster]

I too fly SQ most of the time, though my next long-haul flight will be with another carrier...

KirsFlyer has too many drawbacks for me to remain with them:

- no family membership (no transferring of miles between family members either)
- miles expiry regardless of status (other programs offer miles that don't expire from Silver status onwards)
- no saver redemptions (the only ones worth making) when trying to book a business class award on the A380/777-300ER.
- need to fly 50,000 miles to reach Gold (25,000 for Silver)
- 25% miles bonus for flying SQ (from Silver status onwards)

BMI's Diamond Club:

- family membership, can pool all miles together for rewards
- miles don't expire
- best redemption value of all frequent flier programs
- only need 38,000 miles to reach Gold (16,000 for Silver)
- 25% miles bonus for flying ANY Star Alliance carrier (from Silver status onwards)

I'm moving over, and there are loads others who are joining DC even though they won't be flying them at all (or rarely).

[Splatted]

BMI's Diamond Club:

- family membership, can pool all miles together for rewards
- miles don't expire
- best redemption value of all frequent flier programs
- only need 38,000 miles to reach Gold (16,000 for Silver)
- 25% miles bonus for flying ANY Star Alliance carrier (from Silver status onwards)

I'm moving over, and there are loads others who are joining DC even though they won't be flying them at all (or rarely).

Sounds interesting. But when would you get to use it? I can't see "Singapore" as an option in the booking menu, nor "Australia".

[aster]

Scooby, LH's purchase of BMI might change things in the future, so I'm going to make the most of it while it lasts. I too use a CC here so I will maintain my KF account, but will be using it much more rarely for mileage accruals from flying. This also means I will be flying other airlines more often than in the past and have already purchased a ticket on LH a few days ago (will be crediting the miles to Diamond Club).

Splatted, the best thing about DC is you don't have to fly them to appreciate their FFP since they are also part of Star Alliance. You can collect miles as usual even when flying Singapore Airlines or any other alliance carrier. And when redeeming you also don't have to redeem on BMI but can choose any alliance carrier. That's why there are loads of users signed up for DC who never (or rarely) fly with them.

[Splatted]

You can collect miles as usual even when flying Singapore Airlines or any other alliance carrier. And when redeeming you also don't have to redeem on BMI but can choose any alliance carrier. That's why there are loads of users signed up for DC who never (or rarely) fly with them.

That sounds good. Are the points conversion comparible to other airlines (taking into account online redemption discount 15% that SIA gives?).

How do you go about redeeming an SIA flight using BMI points? (Sorry, I know I can probably find all this info on some FAQ page, but I thought I'd ask in case you knew the quick answer...)

[liujw]

Wow... I'm glad I decided to post this thread here. There's so much discussion here that I feel that I'm learning more than what I can find in text. Really appreciate it. As a student I do not have the experience nor much insight on the topic but I am very interested in learning more about it. Thank you all for participating in the survey as well as your opinions here.

[ScoobyDoes]

Scooby, LH's purchase of BMI might change things in the future, so I'm going to make the most of it while it lasts. I too use a CC here so I will maintain my KF account, but will be using it much more rarely for mileage accruals from flying. This also means I will be flying other airlines more often than in the past and have already purchased a ticket on LH a few days ago (will be crediting the miles to Diamond Club).

Whilst i am a member of KF i only fly SQ on local shorter haul Asian routes in Economy. Going up to Thailand i only pick which is cheaper on those days between TG and SQ where the 25% bonus miles is not an influence on the choice. The impact on my over all number of miles is not significant enough.

Longer haul, to Europe for example, I have taken TG Business as it's not so bad and the savings over SQ are significant. My colleague has taken Turkish before for the same reasons but as they got more intrentched in *A their pricing also went up, something i might imagine for BD in the future as well.

Depending on schedule then, to Korea i'll either take SQ Economy or Asiana Business on the overnighter.


UP-Shot: The FFP itself does not generally sway one's alliance to a particular airline though it might to a particular Group of Airlines such as OW or *A. The next is to choose the most appropriate FFP within that Group of Airlines and for me it had to do with the added benefit of converting credit card points to miles. I think if more cards in Singapore could credit Thai or Asiana programs then i would prefer to switch to one of them as they are both better than KF.

CX has a major advantage with AsiaMiles because as the only OW airline in the territory it can benefit from credit card tie-ups all virtually over over Asia. Both the CX MarcoPolo and AsiaMiles programs are better that KF but to take CX from here we need to fly to HK first.