Gambler

Been loyal CXMPO member for past 13 years including 8 years as DM and most recently as silver since I no longer need to fly for work anymore.

I occasionally pay for PE or the I class fare via TPE for CX long haul. For short haul economy, i no longer have loyalty to CX especially since their short haul product is getting worse every year.

I fly enough to maintain silver but not enough for gold. I've been trying to think of one good reason to stay with MPO rather than move my miles to AA and I couldn't think of one. The burn rates just look so much more attractive using AAmiles on CX metal (especially F).

Any good reason to continue posting miles to Asiamiles??

wandering_fred

You might not fly 4 AA flights?
To credit CX flights in economy to AA you need H class (or higher).
You would need sufficient premium flight segments to qualify for AA PLT based on EQP, since what flying you describe would not likely be 50K EQM for AA.
You likely will not get OPups on AA (nor CX). And sticker upgrades are getting harder to find on USA domestic.
You might decide you want to change back in a couple of years as AA's program gets "sorted out".

Happy wandering and let us know what you decide.

Fred

djday

All good points. Might also consider:
- AA GO only earns 25% miles bonus, AA PLAT and EXPLAT earn 100% bonus, so what makes more sense for your expected travel pattern?
- AA GO (OWR) has no CX departure lounge access unlike CX SL.
- AA mileage cannot be used for CX upgrade awards.

Some related discussion:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...better-me.html

Short hair Francis

Hmm, paging Cathay Boy, hasn't he jumped over to AA EXP yet?

I'll go off on this a little bit.

1) Yes, you need the 4 AA Segments, this was previously not enforced but has been since 2013 or 14.
*However I believe you can use AA Codeshare to get around it, so a AA code, CX metal might work.
There is a thread on AA regarding this. Otherwise I think someone like Dr. HFH might have an eye on this, he's more premium than I am in general.

2) You would need Y, B, H but if the OP is already buying PE, or I than that is likely to work.
PE would earn 1.50 EQP.

3) If the OP has enough 1.50 EQP flight then all he really needs is 33,333 BIS in reality.

4) Op-ups, I won't expect to have them.
You might during around HK Holidays since the totem pole seems to drop 10 feet all the sudden.

5) Sticker Upgrades on AA, they are releasing them very slowly nowadays.
Usually 4-24 hrs out or at the gate, unless its like wide-open or a non-premium route where T-100 still happens.
As a PLT, depends on what you are flying, for ex. DFW-LGA I would say good luck buddy

6) Burn rate, yes burn rate is way better but if I were you.
Do some research first, use BA vs. CX to compare F space for your routes
I've been finding its been very hard to use other OW miles to get CX F for TPAC
Not impossible like a Starnet blocking but very limited.

7) Finally, the dust hasn't settled on the AAdvantage side.
I would be very surprised if we don't get de-valued within the next 9-12 months.
In fact, I've slowed to a crawl on the AA side for 2015 since I'm only 2K away from requal, and match over to AS MVP 75K kinda as a back-up.

AS would be (Y, B, H, K 100%), (L, M, V 50%)

Hope this helps the OP a bit, if you want to tell us more about your pattern, I'll try to give more advice

fakecd

the modern aviation have changed culture... LCC being one but we in HK are flirted with options when it comes to flights... i realized I forwent a lot of cheaper/better non-CX flights in the past because I was so glued to CX for its mere Silver benefits and I find myself a fool now, reflecting back. You will realize promised benefits of Silver is worthless (won't debate here) and soft unpublished benefits all gone to say the least.
I have flown both JL and ANA to Japan in last few months holy boyz I didn't realize some airplane food were infact a "meal" not a cow feed they serve on CX. Oh and I paid 30% less for my flights.

So don't be married to CX unfortunately these shiny silver cards cloud your judgements but that's exactly why it works in favor for the evil empire... if you are DM (which I never was) I guess situation is different, but for a not-so-frequent Annual 25-40k miles butt on seat flyer the benefits are better found on a case-by-case basis.

LchChester

not sute your exact travel pattern. If you are not getting OWS in other program, probably staying with MPO for lounge access is a better choice.

Also, do you have access to getting AA miles other than from flight? Since you are not getting GO, miles you are getting a year is less than 60k. Its quite far away from getting something meaningful redemption from AA. Except TPAC in F, most other redemptions are actually better with AM especially yq is not a major concern now.

Alternatively, if you are looking at the burn rate only, perhaps BAEC is better.

kaka

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)

Or if u want status, look jal.

Plenty of options outside of cx. Depending on ur needs

CX HK

CX management, are you guys reading this? Better advice on here than any of the crap you will get on your fake on-board review forms.

kaka

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)

U think they care?
I had a go at spg last week cuz my 3000usd stay couldnt get credited. I threaten to esakate to upper management and they fixed it in 2 days

In cx u only get a canned email reply. And an email apologizing in 2 mths

carrotjuice

Why should the 4 AA flights matter? Isn't that only required if you want status with AA? Otherwise if OP's main intention is cheaper miles for F redemption on CX, that's moot.

wandering_fred

Unlike CX, AA provides a status level bonus for redeemable miles (RDM). No status - no bonus. Platinum - 100% bonus. (Note: the bonuses add up very quickly)

Happy wandering

Fred

Gambler

Just some responses to comments posted earlier:

- I spend a couple of weeks in the States each year and actually do often end up flying AA whilst I'm there so the 4 segment rule isn't an issue;
- I don't really care for the upgrades (status or sticker) coz I'm not getting them at CX anyway!
- I could easily fly enough to get AA Plat
- Don't really care about CX lounge access in HK (can use plaza premium for free anyway)

Back in the days when I was DM and flying weekly, I often got upgraded or used miles for long haul F and the cabin was always half full of AA redeemers and I always envied how little AA miles it took to get CX F compared to my hard earned Asiamiles (or the fact in recent years AA redemption didn't have the same level oil surcharges/taxes that CX tacked onto awards).

Rivarix

1) OP can always buy AA miles at a decent price to top it off - I think AA selling it (with bonus) on a regular basis.
2) i didn't look closely but is BA burn rate still good after the upcoming devaluation?

Cathay Boy

Also, don't forget the rumor is SL benefits will be significantly reduced, like lounges will be limited to a fixed amount a year rather than as much as you fly.

Really, the only reason to stick with CX is the soft benefits on board and in the airports. Especially if you fly J and AA has pretty good J hard product. And if burn-rate is important to you there's simply no comparison, and if you do it right you can fly F class one-way at 67.5K AA miles ONLY (compare that to 90K Asiamiles round trip east coast USA to HKG)

So if you're only traveling limited, I say go with AA. If you can make DM, I say CX. I'm going to be in your shoes soon, I've submitted a request to move my position in the company so I can stay home more and fly less.

QRC3288

I will add one strong reason why not to be MPO:, related to F tickets:

1.) CX tightened award availability for everyone,
2.) CX eliminated the release of revenue tickets to award bucket for DM members,
3.) 77W only has 6 F seats vs 9 on 74K, and and
4.) AA members can still redeem 67.5k one way F class TPAC.

#1-3 are relatively recent changes, progressively over the last 3 years.

What the above dynamic has inspired, probably unintended by CX but significant nonetheless, is you are at a very significant disadvantage to book advance awards with MPO on CX, particularly for higher classes where availability is less.. Far worse than just 3 years ago when the changes (#1-3 above) hadn't happened yet, and I'm not just talking about earn/burn which we all know about anyway.

What happens now is AA holidaymakers book F tickets WAAAY in advance, perhaps 9-12 months. This always was the case. But with recently tightened availability (and smaller F cabins), I see numerous flights 6+ months in advance where 4/6 seats are for sale, and 0 award inventory left. In these cases I'm pretty sure the 2 "sold" seats are partner awards, based on the conversations I've had with heaps of AA redeemers I run into on my North American F segments. So basically the dynamic is that right now, on TPAC segments, the first 2 seats ultimately go to AA redeemers, while CX tries to sell the remaining 4. As an MPC, the flexibility we used to have - I'm talking about 6+ months here, not exactly a crazy expectation - is limited.

Just a few years ago, with MPC I didn't have to book F award itineraries literally 365 days out. As a DM I could always find something. But now, it seems to be 9-12 months out or bust. The earn/burn for MPO has always been bad, but one of the significant upsides IMO was waaay better (in the case of DM) award availability MPC/AM versus AA, and hence greater flexibility with travel plans if you booked to MPC/AM. But CX has - presumably unintended - destroyed this reason to be MPC in the last few years by making AA and MPC/AM availability pretty similar. The only benefit is perhaps a week or less out, MPC/AM availability opens up a lot easier than AA. But I don't care too much about this because I want to make travel plans before then.

The irony of MPC is that a lot of it is just self-inflicted pain. The things CX blows (wastes?) cash on - allowing me unlimited lounge entries - I really don't care about as much as the soft benefits. The soft benefits - aka, saving my time, making less painful in EY class (seat block), easy to book awards and in particular allowing me to burn my miles to get into F class, consistently superior service on the plane, basically seamless travel things for heavy travelers, etc. - they are completely throwing in the towel. I still think some of this is a mistake post-Amadeus, because in my last 4-5 flights I've been recognized as a DM on each one. But in ~30 flights since Amadeus, perhaps up to half the FAs onboard were clueless as to my status. In hundreds of flights before the switch, that situation hadn't happened but once or twice.

I am building up a pile of receipts in the first half of this year of premium travel on BR, EK and QR. Just booked another BR "Premium Laurel" (J) class North America long haul in June. I'm thinking about sending all my receipts to CX later this year, I've literally spent maybe $10k USD on CX/KA so far this year (on discounted J, award, or economy tickets) and greater $$ amounts on the competitors.

Take this award situation above. The situation above is easily solved and it would incentivize me to spend more on CX again to earn more AM. But for the time being, I really am over being blindly loyal to CX. So what I have I started to do? Accrue AA! I have already booked my first 67.5k miles F TPAC early next year.. I can't imagine this is what CX is trying to encourage but as a customer I've gotta be rational.