500 Award miles from Lufthansa's Miles and More

It seems that Lufthansa is serious upon improving the brand value of their co-branded cards offered in India (by Axis Bank). They are offering 500 Award miles for members to complete the survey (which should take about 5 minutes).

I really do hope to see a new offering of the Axis Bank card. The current product does not seem attractive enough as it does not have a great sign up bonus or transfer ratio.

The survey can be accessed at: http://www.milesandmoreindia.com/HVCMs/

My 2015 JetPrivilege strategy

As my blog title reads, I am fairly new to frequent flyer programs. An upgrade to business class (using my dadś miles) when traveling from BOM to SIN got me interested in this, and I have been pursuing FFPs ever since. My first upgrade was with an Indian carrier – Jet Airways. Naturally, I am a member of their loyalty program – JetPrivilege, and am always keen on getting better status with them.

I joined JetPrivilege in June last year, and have already accumulated an excess of 12.000 JPMiles with them. I was able to do so without traveling much, as they have some excellent partnerships that allow members to earn JPMiles.

Like many other airlines, Jet has partnerships with car rental brands like Hertz and AVIS. Traveling with TABCab allows members to earn even more miles when in need of a taxi service. When in India, these partners can help in earning some additional miles while carrying out daily business.

Using partners like these is very helpful, but in 2014 I managed to get an excess of 5.500 miles by participating in on-line promotions. Let me expand on this:

1. TripAdvisor.in: JetPrivilege allows members to earn JPMiles for every review submitted to TripAdvisor’s India site. I managed to earn about 1300 JPMiles with them. If TripAdvisor keeps its offer, I intend to submit more reviews for attractions I have been to. Visit: http://www.jetairways.com/EN/NL/JetPrivilege/Partners/Lifestyle/TripAdvisorLifestyle.aspx
2. HolidayIQ: Jet and HolidayIQ recently ran a promotion where members were awarded for reviews submitted to HolidayIQ. For 8 or more reviews, members are awarded with 1100 miles. Visit: http://www.jetairways.com/EN/NL/JetPrivilege/Partners/Lifestyle/HolidayIQ.aspx
3. Scripbox: Setting up an account with Scripbox allows JetPrivilege members to pocket 3000 JPMiles. This requires providing some information like bank account details, but the promotion certainly is useful. If you do not want to complete the paper work, I suggest creating an on-line account with them. This provides members with 300 JPMiles.

Jet also awards 500 JPMiles every time a booking is made directly with them (on their website or on their app). I have received this bonus several times and the free miles don’t hurt ;)

For 2015, I plan to use Jet as my primary carrier when traveling within India (would be at least 2.000 to 3.000 JPMiles + 500 miles bonus by booking on their site directly for each flight). If Jet does continue promotions on TripAdvisor (or on HolidayIQ), I plan to write more reviews for them (which can provide a cool 12.000 JPMiles/year for each promotion :D). For Indian residents, the Jet Privilege co-branded cards provide a great sign-up bonus (about 10.000 JPMiles without referrals) and also extend the validity of every JPMile in your account. This way members can potentially earn about 14.000 (2000+12000) to 37.000 (3000+24000+10000) JPMiles, with minimal traveling.

Of late, I have been contemplating on showing some love to my Etihad Guest account. Etihad is a great airline, and serves a huge number of international destinations. Moreover, they it is cheaper to redeem Etihad miles on Jetś flights. My PremierMiles can be converted to Etihad Guest miles (http://earnandburnmiles.blogspot.nl/2015/01/transferring-premiermiles-to-airline.html), and I can get an American Express charge card whose Membership Rewards can be transferred as well (http://earnandburnmiles.blogspot.nl/2015/01/a-comparison-of-travel-credit-cards-in.html).

Transferring PremierMiles to an airline partner

I have been a holder of the PremierMiles card offered by Citibank India for some time. This is one of the rare reward earning credit cards in India which is airline agnostic.

2014 ended on a negative note with Citibank announcing a massive devaluation of the reward points earned with this card. The value of every PremierMile will be halved with effect from February 1^st, 2015. This leaves card holders with some time to transfer points to airline partners, before the value of every PremierMile is reduced.

PremierMiles can be transferred to many airline partners including -

• Delta SkyMiles
• Etihad Guest Miles
• British Airways Avios

Although there are several other transfer partners, I have listed the ones that matter the most to me. In this post, I try to find out the best partner to transfer reward points to.

Before examining every airline partner individually, I would like to analyze the trips I will probably make over the coming year. Based in Amsterdam (AMS), I will have at least 2 AMS-BOM-AMS trips. Besides I will have several intra-Europe trips to destinations like London, Brussels and Paris.

Delta SkyMiles:

The SkyMiles program from Delta has several positive aspects. DL is very generous in mileage earning with many fare classes earning 100% mileage. Another positive with DL is lifelong validity of SkyMiles.

DL SkyMiles are especially important to me as AMS is a major Skyteam hub

The points mentioned above make Delta seem to be a strong contender. However, DL is known to be stingy with award redemptions. There are very few award seats released and most of them are extremely expensive. Let us consider a travel from AMS to BOM and back, somewhere during March, 2015. (using the 5 week calendar functionality)

Availability	Decent (Mostly available)
Minimum miles needed	77.500 (with €482,09 taxes)
Maximum miles needed	100.000 (with €301,45 taxes)
Average miles needed	~86.000 (with €350 taxes)

That seems pretty expensive!!!

PROS	CONS
100 % accrual on many fares	Expensive! (both with miles and cash)
Lifelong validity of miles	Surcharge for non-US originating flights
Decent availability (including partners)	Ceases operations to BOM in Apr, 2015

Etihad Guest:

Etihad airlines is known to provide a great experience when aboard and has been the recipient of the Worldś leading airline for many years in a row. Although not a part of any alliance, they have strong code share agreements with many leading airlines.

They also have a partnership with Indiaś Jet Airways (9W), which makes it possible (and often more economic) to redeem Etihad Guest miles on 9W flights.

I made a similar search for a flight from AMS to BOM and back in March, and this is what I found:

Availability	Poor (mostly not available)
Minimum miles needed	20.200 (with €342.34 taxes)
Maximum miles needed	47.000 (with €342,34 taxes)
Average miles needed	~34.000 (with €342,34 taxes)

I could not find any outgoing flight from AMS during March, so I just doubled the details shown on the inbound leg (to estimate the costs for a return fare). However, the redemption chart for Etihad Guest miles on 9W flights is cheaper than the JetPrivilege redemption chart for 9W flights!

Also Guest miles can be used on 9W operated flights from BRU (so I would consider the availability to be fair/average instead of poor).

Summarizing:

PROS	CONS
Great airline to fly with	Miles expire in 2 years
Decent-Good redemptions with partners	Low availability on Etihad itself
Flies to so many destinations (from Abu Dhabi)

British Airways Executive Club:

BA travels to many destinations from LHR/LCY. They have a great redemption rate of 4500 avios for many short haul flights. This means that I can travel within the EU for 9000 avios (return fare).

BA has a good service record, but does include fuel surcharges for flights originating outside the UK.

Performing the same search yields:

Availability	Good
Average miles needed	59.000 (with €393 taxes)

The journey involves a stop in London (where some people might need transit visas and every passenger has to pay the extra fee for using Heathrow airport).

Verdict:

For me Etihad seems to provide the lowest fare, and hence the most bang for my buck. Although their availability is lower than BA or DL, their partnerships make for a great opportunity to redeem miles. BA seems like a great contender for short haul flights and is part of the OneWorld alliance (which has some great partners).

 It seems I will be transferring my miles to Etihad. Do let me know if you have more inputs regarding transfer of PremierMiles.