Don't know if this is relevant to decision but the Citibank Aadvantage M/C can also help you accrue a lot of miles on all these purchases of transpacific flights, and AA acknowledges credit card miles for those loftier goals like 1MM and 2MM status which (if you really roll up your sleeves) will get you Platinum on AA for life which makes you OW Sapphire for life which means you will get into any OW Business lounge worldwide as long as you're flying on a same day OW carrier ticket. This is a very long term benefit - the long term aspect of which is rare in the airline industry in general, I think. I am AA ExecPlat and 1MM (Gold for life) and working very steadily to 2MM and I've flown CX and loved it and they do give you that extra nice touch from service to lounges - but you can also use AA and the VIP upgrades to get to Narita (when you're flying back from US or making an extra personal trip) and then CX it to HKG which is like an LAX/JFK jaunt, and with AA yearly offers of DEQM you can plan your trips and probably get to Exec Plat if you take six trips or so next year. My half a cent.....

By the way, if you're Exec Plat you're Emerald on Oneworld which gets you into the OW first class lounges everywhere and while I'm not *A I feel from extreme browsing on the board regarding this topic I can safely say the OW first class lounges really rock in comparison to *A except for HON LH which doesn't let in *A members anyways unless they're LH HON Club status