You earn miles/points various ways.

1. credit card - you earn no matter who you buy tickets for, as long as it's in your credit card

2. flying - only the person whose name is on the ticket and is flying will earn miles


So unfortunately no, only the person flying will earn miles and you cannot typically pool miles.

With certain airlines you can in a way.

With British Airways, you can create a Household account and then combine miles from different family members to redeem awards. British Airways award chart is not very good though most of the time but there are some sweet spots. One good thing about British Airways is that it's relatively easy to get silver with them which gives you access to Oneworld lounges if you fly premium economy or business (and oneworld airlines often have sales for business).

With Qatar Airways, you can also credit family members miles to your account but unless you have status with them, you lose a big percentage of the miles. Plus the award chart from Qatar is pretty awful so I really don't recommend to credit miles to this airline. Much better to fly Qatar's cheap business class and credit to British Airways.

This post has been edited by gommm: Jun 9 2016, 07:17 PM

So what strategy u all use when travel with family? I use krisflyer. It's quite good right?

Yep I was aware of BA Avios family miles, but for krisflyer there's no way unfortunately. I've had family members left with just a few thousand miles in their account, not enough to do anything.

Here's my strategy:

Credit Card miles:
I use krisflyer, Asia miles and Enrich Miles (but only during sales for Enrich Miles) when I want to redeem miles from my Maybank 2 premier cards (since they can only convert to those airlines frequent flyer programs).

Flying with and without family:

When I fly oneworld, I credit my miles to BA. I have an household account so when my family flies with me, I can use their miles to redeem. BA's award chart is usually pretty meh but has some sweet spots (for example when traveling to South America). The miles don't expire so it's also a plus and with my flying I can easily get Oneworld Sapphire (BA silver) which will give me access to oneworld lounges.
I thought about crediting my miles to Cathay Pacific, but with my traveling, it'd be impossible to achieve status.


When I fly Star Alliance, I credit my miles to Aegean. It's really easy to get star gold with them (but that's only if you fly their airlines 4 times a year so need to be based in Europe). I'm planning to eventually status match with Turkish Airline since it's even easier to maintain status with Turkish Airline. Aegean also has a family account to pool miles but need to be silver minimum.

I avoid flying Skyteam airlines as much as possible.

The main thing though is that it only makes sense to be loyal to brands and care about where you credit your miles if you travel above 50k per year in premium economy or higher. If not, you won't really be able to get status anyway and the number of miles you'll have saved up won't really give you much. At least though, both of those frequent flyer program (BA and Aegean) do not expire the miles as long as you have some activity whereas krisflyer will expire miles after 3 years regardless of activity

This post has been edited by gommm: Jun 10 2016, 03:06 AM

This thread is very informative, learnt a bunch from helpful and experienced people who have shared their tips and tricks.

My miles come predominantly from Maybank credit card spends. I simply do not fly enough to get status of any sort. Not that it matters when you can redeem business or first class seats as lounge access and other benefits will be available to you anyway.

Posting this from Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Halfway through our Rocky Mountaineer tour.

Flew into the US on CX J, still one of my favourite business class seats. I love the extra space when lowering the armrest. This trip we managed to snag 2 seats in the mini-business class cabin just behind First Class. There were only 4 of us so it was very quiet and exclusive. CX FA's I find to be more genuinely warm and caring as compared to MH or SQ (they are less attractive/sexy but I'm not into eye-candy for red-eye flights anyway).

Tried out the new Dnata lounge, Qantas and BA lounge at Changi (Qantas is the best IMHO) and CX's the Bridge and the Wing in HKG on the way here. Both CX lounges were crowded as usual but there were no problems finding seats or getting a shower before our flight.

Tried out Virgin America First Class from SFO to Seattle, absolutely loved it, especially the funky tune they play as their pre-take off safety routine. Loved the plush white recliners and cool ambient lighting on board. This was a paid flight btw, I had no way of redeeming this flight.

At the end of the day, whatever strategy one employs, the time and effort spent on accruing miles and points is definitely worth it.

* Edit: did the Boeing factory tour and loved it. Learnt so much and actually saw a Korean Air Dreamliner being tested. The tour guide played dumb when I asked her about delivery problems for QR 787s though

This post has been edited by dctravels: Jun 10 2016, 08:59 AM

I think this is a key point. I used to fly a lot and was above to get status but with just 1 long haul and maybe 2 medium haul flights per year now it's not worth trying to chase and get status or to even collect points on any specific airlines. I'll survive with my card points for the time being.

Hi everybody. Just found out on this thread which i think is very informative. I just want to ask about krisflyer.

When you login to krisflyer and you want to redeem a flight fully with points u got the option of clicking book flight or redeem flights.

If you click on redeem flight most of the time it says wait list whereas if you click on book flight it's not wait list and when it comes to payment u can click pay with kf miles. I realise too more flight options are available vs clicking on redeem. So what's the catch with choosing the book flight option over redemption option ?

obviously they prefer to sell rather than redemption, if those seats are not sold close to flight date then it will be released for redemption for those on wait list.

Yup. My question is if have all the mileage wouldn't it be better that i click on the book flight option and than when comes to payment i click on pay all with krisflyer.

only have 17k air miles, so tried to redeem return MAS ticket between KUL and Singapore.

worked out the Tax + Fees is RM400++, that costs more than air asia all in fare
Am i using the air mile in a wrong way?

This post has been edited by lamode: Jun 11 2016, 09:12 PM

medium or long haul flight only

I fly with MAS frequently KL-SIN, usually below 400 return. (economy)

Actually, that's a good question. I have 8259 enrich miles which are going to expire in two months.
I could complete it with miles from treat points and redeem an award like this but I don't really want to (I prefer to reserve them for a suites ticket with singapore airline) . What would be a good use of those miles?

Haven't tried it but if it works, then that's a loophole to be exploited for sure.


Keep your miles and go for Mhupgrade instead.


You could transfer to another for a fee. Otherwise, can't really see a better use other than topping up with treat points

Yeah that's what I thought, problem though is that the redemption chart from malaysia airlines is not very competitive with the Asia Miles one so for most route, I'd still come out ahead if I use Asia Miles instead.

Only real use I guess is to redeem on emirates.

I did look at extending them but at the price of 0.02RM + 40RM, I'd be crazy to pay this much.

This post has been edited by gommm: Jun 12 2016, 03:23 AM

thanks guys

look at this business class seat on Oman Air, anyone tried?

This post has been edited by bearbear: Jun 12 2016, 10:59 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

That's very small. If compare with others that I tried before.

I have around 1M Treatpoints which should be enough to redeem J to Europe on MH via Enrich & CX via Asia Miles.

Not yet converted. Still looking for better offer.

MH has this exorbitant YQ charge while on CX only need to pay taxes/fees.

Any other option? Prefer EY but don't know how to check how much needed to redeem and if anything is available.

CX might be the best option because they are so generous on the YQ