alicechor

I usually fly on Cathay from Malaysia to LA about 4 times/year and after reading most of the threads about the benefits for AA vs. AM, I am still undecided which is the best that I should claim my air miles. My personal vacation will mostly be flying within Asia, with that AA might not be a good choice. Or do I have an option to exchange between miles? And how to do that?
So these are what I want to consider from the air miles membership program:
- redeem free ticket?
- free upgrade seat to business (I usually fly on economy)
- expiry period of the air miles

Thanks.

Cathay Boy

Depends, are you willing to pay high Economy fares (Y, B, H) to bank them with AA miles? You listed free ticket as one of your favorites, AA have way better redemption rates for free ticket vs. AM. Case in point: only 160K AA miles needed for CX F cabin, with AM miles you need 220K.

If your company will only pay for cheap fares, then the best bet is CX.

Guy Betsy

You can only earn AA points if you buy higher fare class on CX as Cathay Boy has stated above. Even the 'cheapest' fare that would earn miles on AAdvantage would easily add over RM 3000 to your fare to LAX.

You cannot upgrade on CX flights using AAdvantage miles. Although the advantage of AAdvantage is that the miles do not expire as long as you have some activity on them within 3 years.

Yes redemption rates are lower with AAdvantage but one cannot waitlist on a CX/KA flight if the flight is full. Whereas you can with AM.

If you are flexible in your choice of carriers, eg using AA codeshared flights for your flights to the USA, or flying on AA via Japan to LAX, or if you fly on CX, fly in Business or First Class, then bank into AAdvantage.

iadp

If you can find another 30K miles a year in intra Asia or other flying on top of your KUL-LAX routes, I'd bank into Aadvantage. You'll get 8 SWUs with AA that could get you into business class NRT-LAX. It's an old slanted business class seat right now but certainly better than economy.

If you book economy on CX that won't help you get into business class as you'd need to book premium economy to get a shot at a business class upgrade for the TPAC flights to LAX.

Redeeming a F award with AA from KUL-LAX roundtrip is only 135K miles. It's a steal. Unless there's another award chart for residents outsides the US?

If you travel 100K miles or higher a year, I'd bank to AA. Even if you only travel ~70K miles a year, I'd probably still bank to AA.

Mwenenzi

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html

alicechor

Thanks all. The information provided are helpful. I have decided to bank my miles to AM this round. But I have about 12k miles with AA, what can I do with it? Any recommendation?

Guy Betsy

Redeem a oneway within asia on OW partners...

You might as well join the MPC ! Earn your status that way too.