Aegean airlines is introducing a new frequent flyer scheme.

Turkish Airlines or Asiana

I guess the other *A membres finally cracked it that there was this quick way to earn status with Aegean.

members* - I had to correct that for the fear of being thought of in the same light as other vocabulary and grammar challenged members of the forum.

Whoever would that be ?? ;)

Unfortunately the value proposition of Star Alliance as a whole is not terribly enticing.

Sure you've got great carriers like SQ in the mix but really Star Gold in SQ's ranking of importance is pretty low. All other status besides PPS Club membership is pretty insignificant in SQ's world.

As a Star Gold, you don't get access to Star Alliance's First Class lounges. Its existing suite of Business Class lounges are also pretty bog standard.

There are also too many members in Star Alliance to the extent that it doesn't feel very special. And the standard deviation of quality and service across the alliance is quite large (SQ vs AI for example). Oneworld may be average to some but all member airlines offer consistently average products and services within the respective cabin segments. This really does aid travel across the network.

I think we're all quite lucky to be within the sphere of influence of oneworld and not Star Alliance.

Err, are you calling CX average?

Hah. No, this is a very valid point and it's one of the reasons I too lean towards oneworld. That said, United Club isn't a bad proposition, but if I recall correctly the lounge offerings in SIN for United Club aren't great. I distinctly remember a thread on AusBT which revealed that SIN access is limited to the TG lounge, which is not the best. I then recommended the T1 swimming pool.

However, there is better news wiith respect to gold tier retention.

Gold Tier Retention

"12,000 miles within 12 months (including at least 4 Aegean or Olympic Air flights) or a total of 24,000 miles, regardless of which airline you choose to fly with"

The strategy is to obtain gold before 24 November 2014 under old rules and fly 24,000 miles per annum to retain this status.  24,000 miles is close to the silver threshold on most *A carriers.