Originally Posted by
allset2travel
Gardyloo,
Thanks for the tips re no plat bonus miles on BA & JL numbered flights & to choose an AA code on TPAC & TATL flights.
Keeping in mind the above sound advice, I could not find any AA codeshare numbered flights out of TLV –xLHR-SYD. They are all BA’s. Therefore, big no no per your tips. I shall try ex-AMM. See below.
Now re ex-AMM: With the OW online tool, I found that after AMM (RJ)-LHR (QF)-SYD -, while at SYD, the tools runs into a dead end. There is no possibility to select PER or any city in Australia (since NO green square dots avail). Where did I go wrong? I still like to play around with this idea of yours.
I will also play around with other ideas that you've mentioned.
If using the online tool, you need to spell out every segment rather than letting the tool pick the connecting flights for you. So if you want to go from TLV/AMM to SYD via LHR, you need to put in the TLV-LHR and the LHR-SYD segments in manually, rather than putting in TLV-SYD and letting the machine decide which flight to connect to. Ignore the maps - just type in the code of the next airport, but do it one at a time.
AA has no codeshares on flights where (a) you're not connecting immediately to/from an AA-metal flight and/or (b) one end of the flight is in the USA. What you want to do on e.g. TLV-XXX-SYD is to get on a QF flight down under, where your AA Plat bonus will be significant. Originating in TLV your only choices are LHR, MAD or BUD, only one of which is an intercontinental gateway to Asia or Oz. By originating in AMM you can go directly to N. America, Europe or Asia, saving a segment.
Again, if you specify all segments one at a time, you shouldn't encounter any "dead-ending" at any point.
You don't need to use AA codes in order to get the bonus miles, just airlines where AA has a bonus agreement, i.e. everyone except BA, JL and MA. But even flying BA or JL for a couple of segments is not the end of the world; you'll still get full miles and class of service bonus; and sometimes you can use other codeshares (e.g. QF on BA metal) which will also generate AA Plat bonuses.
Originally Posted by
allset2travel
christep,
Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, miles are important. No realize that JL and BA don’t offer elite bonus miles, I try to focus on picking destinations and flights not involving those 2 airlines.
I came up with the following modified itinerary (DONE4) that has been validated and have availability except for SYD-LHR segment that has no availability. (did try different dates and QF1 or QF39 etc....). I saw 744 in one of the flight. I hope they fly A380 on this route.
AMM-xORD-LAX-ORD-ANC-DFW-JFK-HKG-DEL-BKK-SIN-PER-DRW-ADL-SYD-LHR-AMM
This itin yields only 39,331 BIS miles (a bit pathetically low) due to not much zig-zagging in Asia to avoid JL. My TATL AMM-xORD is on AA7201. TPAC flight JFK-HKG is on AA codeshare (AA6073).
I make it 49,398 according to the GCM. I don't think that's especially pathetic, but YMMV. It would yield (my math) around 114,000 redeemable AA miles. The route I listed above, (TLV-LHR...MAD-TLV) even with 3 BA/JL flights, comes in at 55K BIS and 116,500 AA miles (and 8K more AA EQP if you're interested in shooting for EXP.)