Hi all
Looking to see what the collective wisdom can do to guide my thinking.
I’ve recently relocated from Melbourne/Sydney, Australia to Oslo, Norway indefinitely. After having finished working in Australia in October last year, the chances of keeping my Velocity Gold (expiring early June) are slim to none. So, what to do?
I currently also have Qantas Silver which doesn’t expire for a little longer (end of August) along with Qantas Club (December 2020).
I have a likely trip to North America in July (including some internal flights there), which would be enough to keep Silver with Qantas (clearly too late for Velocity, though). And I will probably have a trip to Asia or perhaps as far back as Australia at the end of the year. So I could just stay with Qantas, fly with Oneworld partners, and use QC membership for lounge access where available if I’m not otherwise flying business.
I’m expecting a couple of long international flights each year is probably likely for the next few years as well, usually in business; and hopefully a few more local trips in Europe as well. Unfortunately my current job doesn’t involve any flying.
So the alternatives that I’m currently thrashing around are:
Do I stay within Oneworld, but say switch to AA? Perhaps take a run at a challenge to Oneworld Sapphire.
Or switch allegiance to Star Alliance, and say look at United’s match / challenge (the local SAS doesn’t seem to have any such options, although I could of course use any resulting Star Alliance status otherwise when flying SAS). The lack of domestic lounge access in the US would be a bit of a shame (being at the airport early before a flight is completely fine by me when I can sit around in the lounge), but I guess I could fork out for a daypass.
Appreciate any insights and experience others may have.
Scott