What is your experience with airline frequent flyer programs? Are they a good idea or not?

Wednesday 29th April, 05:19 AM JST

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Den Den at 10:57 AM JST - 29th April

Seats are never available when I need them. But they work for the airlines, I always choose the airline because of points.
Farmboy at 10:59 AM JST - 29th April

I've had good luck with United.
cow76 at 11:23 AM JST - 29th April

They suck because there are so few flights you can actually use them on. I just don't bother claiming the points any more, don't need the grief.
Patrick Smash at 12:02 PM JST - 29th April

United has a great program, but book well in advance. ANA is not only dreadful in that the mileage keeps disappearing, but has rude staff in their call centre who talk absolute crap and slam the phone down on you if you ask them any questions.

5 months before a flight to the UK I was told I had to go on a waiting list of 15 and when I explained I needed a flight because it was a wedding, they told me to pay and then slammed the phone down. That's typical of Japanese service though, especially to the non-Japanese when you're not face to face.
Pukey2 at 12:35 PM JST - 29th April

Patrick: Whenever I use ANA now, I just collect miles using my Virgin card. The points don't 'disappear' as long as you use or collect points at least once in 3 years. Haven't used my ANA card for ages and I don't intend to anymore. I now have 4 cards in my possesion. Forced to sign up with NWA when I travelled with Korean Airlines earlier this year. I think that's another card where points don't disappear.

What is good is that usually a trip to Europe gives enough miles for a domestric trip which is good as domestic flights in Japan are a total rip-off, price wise.
Sanatan22 at 01:08 PM JST - 29th April

You need to fly very frequently to make it worthwhile. I have 5 different frequent flyer cards, with different airlines for different destinations, but never got anything out of it.
Badge213 at 03:56 PM JST - 29th April

Generally Speaking, Since it costs you nothing to sign up and if you are flying from Japan quite a bit it all adds up. I personally flew business class on two flights just on Frequent Flier miles to Japan so it does help those 10plus hour flights.
noborito at 07:49 PM JST - 29th April

Who would fly united without their program. Price would drive everthing. I believe most people pay a few more yen to fly for miles. without it, well why fly crapy service.
Ultradude at 09:25 PM JST - 29th April

Switched to Krisflyer (Singapore) and get points on my credit card - quite satisfied, 100 yen equals one mile, pay everything on it. Part of Star Alliance, too.
donkusai at 08:28 AM JST - 30th April

I had frequent flyer points with Ansett Australia and had enough points for a free return flight to the US or Canada, but was just short of a trip to London (which I was hoping for) when the stupid airline failed and went out of business. Everything was gone.
jonnyboy at 11:54 AM JST - 30th April

i'd like them to be useful. whilst i'm a little suspicious of "loyalty" cards (companies should be working to secure my business, not vice versa) i do hear about people using the cards to their advantage. only problem is there are so many schemes and i'm uninformed about how to make best use of them
toguro at 01:12 PM JST - 30th April

After this current trip to Chicago, I will have earned enough miles for a free round trip ticket in the US. We'll see how much of a pain AA will make it.
Apsara at 03:25 PM JST - 30th April

I've had a free one-way flight NZ-Japan, a free business class return flight Japan-HK, and another free business class flight return Japan-Beijing all from air points, so I'm not complaining.
AEROCASTER at 04:40 PM JST - 30th April

Air Canada's Star Alliance points work great for me. It's easy to keep the balance of the points intact with very little trouble, and I have two credit cards that continue to rack up Aeroplan points for standard household purchases throughout the year. Medium haul reward tickets out of Narita are a particularly worthwhile use of Star Alliance points.
motytrah at 12:07 AM JST - 1st May

Status with the airline means everything. If you are a top tier customer you get first crack at the award seats. General people get table scraps in comparison.

If you fly a lot between Japan and the US, then Northwest (now part of Delta) might be the airline too look at. There are some exclusive benefits Asia based elites get (like lounge access for Gold and Plat members).

Generally, US based airlines are highly automated, so you can look at what award availability is like online before you commit a single dollar to the airline. A lot of the Asian carriers still make you call for a lot of the award stuff, though that's changing slowly.

The big thing is to find a program that meets your needs and maximize your spend on that airline. Some of them office point/miles towards airline status just for having a certain spend on their affinity credit card. Getting status gets you more option on how to spend the miles. You also tend to get accrue bonus miles much quicker if you have status. So it tends to balloon.

Someone mentioned Aeroplan from Air Canada, it's not a bad program, but award tickets are a bit Canada centric. You can't book round trip tickets in other countries easily.