Originally Posted by
scratchsd
I just moved to Los Angeles from Phoenix (hence US Air). LAX is the closest airport, but Long Beach, Orange County, and Burbank are within an hour.
I fly 1 or 2x per month to Miami/Fort Lauderdale (most traveled by far), 4x a year to Germany, and also occasionally SFO/SJC, ATL, JFK, DCA/IAD, and PHX.
I own my own business, so price is important, but first class upgrades are #1.
I travel about 130,000 air miles a year
One thing to note: With 130k air miles a year, you can afford to do your short hops on other airlines. So I would suggest considering either sticking with USAir for LAX-PHX or looking at Southwest for 1-hour flights (presumably first class upgrades are not as important on such short flights, good schedules are important, and there's no first class anyway on RJs!).
As long as you can steer 100k air miles a year to AA to be EXP, that seems to make a lot of sense.
One thing to keep in mind is that AA probably has the best redepmtion and UA second best. (What's the point of collecting miles if you'll never use them, and what's the point of collecting miles if you can't use them?)