My frequent flyer status '20

At the moment, I have silver status with all three major airline alliances. Namely, Star Alliance, OneWorld and Skyteam Flying Blue. Purely a coincidence.

Star Alliance Singapore Airlines Silver

Skyteam Flying Blue Silver

OneWorld Qatar Airways Silver

This is actually the first time where I have equal status with all three alliances. So how did this come about?

Well, for my Singapore Airlines status, last year I had achieved Gold status and had enjoyed the lounge access that comes with it, even when travelling in economy class. However, I did not accumulate enough flying miles to sustain my Gold status. So this year, I had a soft landing to Silver status.

For my Qatar Airways status, this is because of a recent free status match initiated by the airline. Five airlines were selected to be matched to Qatar Airways status, one of which happened to be Singapore Airlines. 

So I submitted the necessary information via email and about 20 days later was informed that I had been matched to the Silver status with the Qatar Airways Privilege Club.

For Skyteam, it was thanks to me flying Kenya Airways business class last year from Mumbai via Nairobi to Geneva return, as well as some economy class flights on KLM airlines and Middle Eastern Airline. These miles were retroactively claimed as recently as end of May, about 5 months after I had taken these flights.

Fortunately, AirFrance/KLM flying blue had an online form for submission of retroactive claim of miles and their reply was thankfully swift, if not immediate. Thus I managed to accumulate sufficient miles to attain silver status.

So, what are the benefits that come with silver status. Sadly, not many useful benefits for me. Let me go into each of the alliance silver status benefits.

For Singapore Airlines Krisflyer Silver status, the benefits are as follows:

• 25% mileage bonus on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights. I would say this is the single most useful benefit, as the bonus miles could be significant on longer flights or taking premium classes.
• Waived or discounted service fees        
• Priority waitlist for Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, or Star Alliance flights

The last 2 benefits are not exactly useful to me.

For Qatar Airways Silver Privilege Club, the benefits are as follows:

Lounge access

Access to the Oryx lounge in Doha and I guess most business class lounges worldwide when taking Qatar Airways flights, even in economy classes. 

On top of this, I was given two complimentary guest passes for use at Doha.

This is quite interesting since Qatar Airways Silver Privilege Club is aligned to OneWorld Ruby status, which provides minimum benefits and certainly no lounge access.

25% tier bonus on eligible flights by Qatar Airways. 

Again, this is a useful benefit, as the bonus miles could be significant on longer flights or taking premium classes.

Excess baggage allowance
15 kg or 1 additional piece

Priority check-in
Priority boarding

Both these benefits reduce the time needed to queue for check-in and boarding (more cabin hold baggage space). Probably giving a 'classy' feel as well.

50% mileage per family member on all eligible flights

• Priority stand-by

Flexi awards
Shop & pay with Qmiles at Qatar Duty Free and Oryx Galleria

Preferred seats

The rest of the benefits are not really useful for me.

For Skyteam, the benefits of Flying Blue silver are:

• Access to priority lines at check-in, baggage drop-off and boarding

Both these benefits reduce the time needed to queue for check-in and boarding (more cabin hold baggage space). Again giving a 'classy' feel as well.

• Choose your standard seat free of charge

It's good to be able to select seats free of charge, especially when nowadays many airlines charge extra to reserve even standard seats.

• Earn 6 Miles for each euro spent
• Get 25% off of seating options
• Bring an additional baggage item on all SkyTeam flights

Excess baggage allowance is always welcome!

Comparing among these three silver status, I would say the Qatar Airways Silver status comes in most useful since it allows lounge access.

Moving forward, I do intend to try and maintain, if not, upgrade my status.

For a start, I would maintain my Qatar Airways silver status solely for the lounge access when travelling on Qatar Airways economy class.

For my Krisflyer Elite Silver status, I would like to strive for Gold status again. One way is by taking the Singapore Airlines Singapore to Newark Premium economy class, twice! Currently it is reasonably priced at ~S$1500. Hopefully the price stays this way. This would also allow me to sample the world's longest flight as well.

As a Star Alliance Gold member, I get lounge access even when travelling on economy class on other member airlines, quite a lot in fact, since Star Alliance is the biggest airline alliance.

It even allows me to sample various lounge offerings within an airport. For example, in Bangkok, Singapore Airlines, Thai, Turkish Airlines and Eva Air set up their own lounges there. Other than Bangkok, there are multiple Star Alliance lounges in London Heathrow and Los Angeles as well, among others.

While travelling domestically within the United States, having Star Alliance Gold status will allow me access into United Clubs.

For my Skyteam Flying blue membership, I do intend to try and achieve Gold status as well, for the sole purpose of checking out Skyteam lounges.

One affordable way is to fly on Saudia busienss class. Saudia usually has reasonably priced business class flights from Europe such as Athens to South East Asia such as Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

Yup, that's my frequent flyer plans for now. It would be excellent if I can have lounge access for all three major alliance even when flying economy class! So many airlines to fly on😀