Hi Everyone,

You have all been great, and I am very thank for your help.

I thought I owed you all a follow-up after all the advice you were kind enough to give me. So after weighing DL vs. CO carefully, including how they fit my needs, and the availability of affinity credit cards, and even where my wife would like to go on vacation, the winner is…. (wait for it...)

AA.

Yeah I know, I can’t really believe it either, but I have been reading other threads and looking at options for relatively fast ways to make it to elite status.

I was sitting down to make 20k miles worth of reservations for the month of Feb and thinking to myself that it was just crazy that no one wanted my business enough to give me elite status for it (maybe y’all have other thoughts but it seems to me that I am a good customer even if I am a new one).

I was looking at AA flights because I had a credit with AA because of a flight I had to change at the last min that I had to use somehow to get reimbursed for it, and then I remembered the AA Platinum Challenge.

I had originally dismissed AA because they don’t fly out of EWR all that much though they do some. But then I discovered HPN and discovered how CHEAP the flights out of LGA were.

So I signed up for the AA Platinum Challenge, and unless I get asked to cancel my flights for an important business reason I should be AA Platinum before much of March has passed.

As some posters have suggested though, I am going to keep my eyes open and see if AA provides the best overall value, and will decide about working on AA EXP vs another airline in the future.

I have to admit that much of this decision was based on my wanting to be part of the elite frequent flyer club (not the airline lounges, just being part of the group that y’all are part of)…. and AA seems to be the only airline that will let me join based on how much flying I am doing now vs. how much I have done in the past. It seems like it makes good business sense to me for them to do so. And I am grateful for the opportunity.

Actually I called DL and CO and asked them if they had similar programs. The lady from DL made fun of me and my low number of Skymiles which was enough for me to decide to cancel my Delta Skymiles AmEx right there and then and ended any further consideration of DL. The person from CO I got on the phone, suggested I fly AA (really!). Though another person called me back from CO and was EXTREMELY pleasant and helpful. The person that I spoke with at AA about the platinum challenge was also very nice and helpful and wanted to make sure I understood that EQP and miles were not the same and that most businesses wouldn’t let me fly on fairs that would have a one to one EQP to miles ratio. (very true of my place of employment too, though for better or worse, real miles to fly are not in short supply…)

So at least for now I am an AA guy.

Thanks so much for your help, and for letting me be part of the FT forum!