How to use

Airline Elite prices an itinerary against a frequent flyer programme and tells you how far it carries you toward the next tier. It covers every programme in the three alliances, so the same trip can be compared across all of them at once.

Three steps

1. Pick a programmeOpen Change programme in the rail and choose the one you collect in. The alliance tabs narrow the list. It opens on Cathay.
2. Add your flightsAdd a flight gives you a row: airline, origin, destination, cabin and booking class. A row can be duplicated, or turned into a return, rather than typed twice.
3. Read the panel beside itIt holds the running total, the tier that total reaches, and what the next tier still needs.

What the label on a flight means

Every flight carries a label saying how much the number beside it can be trusted. They are not decoration — they are the difference between a published rate and an assumption.

Confirmed

The programme publishes a rate for exactly these inputs. Nothing was assumed.

Estimated

A real published rate, reached through an assumption the calculator cannot check — usually the base member rate where your current status would change it, or a fare converted at the rate in Enter fares in.

Fare needed

This programme qualifies on what you spend, so it cannot price the flight until you open the row and enter the fare.

Not priced

The programme publishes no rate for this flight. Usually the airline earns nothing in that programme.

Route incomplete

The row still needs an origin and a destination.

Unverifiable

A tier exists but carries a condition the calculator cannot test, such as a minimum number of sectors on a particular airline. It is shown rather than counted.

Sharpening the answer

Already earned. The field under the total takes the balance you are starting from, so the tier progress reflects your year rather than this trip alone.

Current status. Some programmes pay a higher rate to members who already hold a tier. Setting it turns an estimate into a published rate.

Enter fares in. Spend-based programmes publish their rate in one currency. Choose the currency you are paying in and correct the per-dollar rates if they have moved; they are editable approximations, not live rates.

Comparing programmes

Best alternatives ranks every other programme by how far this same itinerary carries you in it, as a percentage of the next tier. It is the quickest way to see whether you are crediting your flying to the right place. Open the full list to see all of them, not only the strongest four.

Programmes in the rail is the reference table behind this: what each programme counts, what it counts it in, and what each tier takes. Earning charts holds the rate tables for the four programmes that earn from a published chart rather than a formula.

Checking the working

Calculation audit, under the itinerary, lists every flight, the rate it was priced on, and what that leaves unproven. If a number looks wrong, that is where to look first.

Keeping an itinerary

An itinerary lives in the address bar, so Copy share link hands someone the whole thing as a URL. It is also kept in this browser, so a reload does not lose it. Clear all empties it.

The airline marks

Every row that names an airline or an alliance shows its mark, to make a long list quicker to read. The marks are the trademarks of the airlines and alliances they belong to, who have nothing to do with this tool and have not endorsed it. The SkyTeam mark comes from Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0.

What it does not do

It does not check schedules: it will price a route an airline does not fly. Distances are great-circle between airports, so a route sitting within a few miles of a band boundary can land in the neighbouring one. Bonus earning from elite status, co-branded cards and fare-brand promotions is not modelled, nor are redemption or upgraded fares. Qualification is measured over a calendar year.

Check the programme's own calculator before making a booking decision. The full method note sits at the foot of the calculator.