creampuff

Hello everybody. I've asked on the Oneworld and Qantas forums about a frequent flyer program my around-the-world trip and the recommendations seem to be to use AA's frequent flyer program due to better redemption rates compared with other airline's programs.

This holiday trip is for me, my wife, daughter on a child ticket and son as a lap-infant. We live in London, but Mrs Puff is from Hong Kong and I'm an Australian citizen, so most of our regular travel is UK-HK-Aus. If I sign up for AAdvantage, it is likely that I would like to redeem my miles on BA, Qantas or Cathay Pacific and not on AA. I'm only interested in J or F redemptions; for economy travel I just buy cash tickets.

Here is my itinerary. It is a One World Explorer DONE6 ticket, i.e. business class, booking class D. Starts in January 2015, ends in July or August.

JNB-QF-SYD
SYD-JL-NRT
NRT-UL-CMB
CMB-CX-HKG
HKG-KA-RGN
RGN-KA-HKG
HKG-AA-LAX (operated by CX)
LAX-AA-ORD
ORD-AA-CUN
CUN-AA-JFK
JFK-AA-BDA
BDA-AA-MIA
MIA-AA-SCL
SCL-LA-GIG
GIG-BA-LHR
LHR-BA-EBB

In addition and on separate tickets, we will also be doing in economy:
SYD-MEL-CBR-SYD on Qantas
SCL-IPE-SCL on Lan Chile

So.... how about AAdvantage for a FF program for this trip?

Mwenenzi

Creanpuff other posts on the same topic below.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qanta...itinerary.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...l#post23843304

The answer will be same:- AA is a lot better than QF. AA awards cost less in miles/points than QF and have low co pay $$. Unless the AA award is on BA when a cash surcharge applies.

AndyHall

No problems booking award tickets using the AAdvantage web page. Just did it a few weeks ago for my wife and daughter.

However, while there is no problem booking BA flights with the system, the taxes are MUCH higher than for the AA ones. I think there were some other thread a while back discussing this. One nice benefit with the AA awards it doesn't matter how many legs you fly, only the zones.

Also, I also have an infant son (soon 2), and adult/child/infant all use the same amount of miles. So in your case, you would need to book 4 award tickets. You can not add an infant to an award ticket, so it may make sense to pay for one ticket and add the lap infant to that ticket.

creampuff

That was one thing I wasn't sure about with AAdvantage- so if say I wanted to fly on an award booking from LHR->POM (Port Moresby) then this would, assuming award seats were actually available, count as a single Europe-SW pacific even though the routing would be something like LHR-HKG-CNS-POM, i.e. 3 x flights?

Mwenenzi

The taxes are exactly the same. The carrier imposed surcharges (~profit) are not the same. Never confuse real taxes, as paid to governments, with carrier imposed surcharges (~profit). Those that do are being sucked in by the airlines.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"The taxes are exactly the same."

Not quite.

The presence of surcharges on AAdvantage award tickets for TATL travel on BA metal triggers certain U.S. taxes that would not apply to "free" award travel on AA metal.

But those additional U.S. taxes pale in comparison to the carrier surcharges for travel on BA metal.

arlflyer

Sorry, I may have lost my mind here (very possible) - but is OP not referring to a Oneworld Explorer award ticket, which AA stopped issuing last April? Does that not present an issue?

Dave Noble

No , the OP isn't

The OP is referring to the OneWorld Around the World fare which is a paid ticket

If it was an award ticket , there would be zero points to be earned

arlflyer

Huh, interesting. I had thought this whole post was about what program to transfer points into to use for redeeming the award listed. Especially given that the OP mentions that the trip is in J, that they usually redeem points for J and pay for economy, and that they will be doing separate paid economy tickets. So that kind of threw me off.

That makes more sense then.

creampuff

Yup, to confirm, these are paid tickets. I've had a recommendation on the Qantas forum ( I've had a QF FF account for a long time) not to use Qantas but to use an AA FF account for this trip.

I think we (me, wife, daughter) will make it from zero to AA Plat on this ininerary, is that correct? It's around 55,000 miles flown.

Dave Noble

Assuming all flights occur within 1 calendar year , 55,000 flown miles will get to 82.5k qualifying points

50k qualifying points ( plus 4 AA sectors meets the Platinum requirement )
100k qualifying points is the requirement to attain Executive Platinum status

If you do another 18.5k points before the end of the calendar year, wil then get EP status

creampuff

Should I consider a AA Platinum Challenge?

The first Qantas JNB-SYD flight in D-fare class business should give over 10,000 EQP (I think).

Is there any way to do an Exec Plat challenge? Can my 4 year old daughter do a Platinum Challenge?

Dave Noble

Yes, I would definitely consider the platinum challenge and no reason why the 4 year old could not sign up too

The 1 flight on its own will meet the challenge , which means that you will be eligible for status bonus on that flight and all subsequent flights which are on carriers where the bonus is applied

I think it would easily be worth the $250 signup fee

creampuff

OK thanks. I'm not sure about this bit:
According to here
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...enges-matches/
"If you begin your status challenge before June 16 and end up completing it, status is valid through February of the following year.

If you begin your status challenge on or after June 16 and end up completing it, status is valid for the remainder of the year, the entire following year, and until February the year after.

So generally you’re best off completing a challenge in the second half of the year in order to maximize status."

In my case the JNB-SYD flight is in January 2015. However, even without the challenge I would qualify for Platinum anyway with my itinerary based on miles flown. I'd just get Platinum after the first flight with a Plat Challenge instead of towards the end of the trip without, which means more FF miles throughout the trip if I do the challenge.

So if I do a Plat Challenge and qualify after my first JNB-SYD flight in January 2015, would I have platinum status until Feb 2016 or Feb 2017?

bhomburg

You will have platinum status through Feb. 2017. All flight activity in the 2015 calendar year is applied towards for the 2016 membership year which starts on March 1, 2016 and ends Feb. 28, 2017.
And the $250 ( or thereabouts) fee for the challenge is definitely worth it - you'll be getting around 45,000 RDM more out of your trip (the 100% platinum status bonus) with the challenge than if you'd just qualify the regular way.