Hello,

This is my first post and I appreciate your help!

I recently signed up for the Chase British Airways and Citibank American Airlines deals and snagged 100k BA miles and 150k AA miles with 3 credit cards. I only need 1 Visa card and I am having a difficult time choosing between keeping the BA or the AA credit card. I anticipate spending 50k a year in personal and business expenses, so I would like to keep the card that will allow me to travel for vacation using the program that requires as few miles as possible and is as easy to use as possible. With the AA card I earn 1 mile for every dollar, but with the BA card I earn 1.25 miles for every dollar. I will not be earning mileage by any other method.

I created the following charts based upon the BA and AA reward charts:

American Airlines and partners (one way mileage requirements from LAX)

Intra-US - 12.5k
Hawaii/Canada/Mexico/C'bean - 17.5k
South Pacific/Australia/NZ - 37.5k
Northern South America - 15k-17.5k
Southern South America - 20k
Japan/Korea - 25k
China/Southeast Asia/Sri Lanka - 35k
India /Middle East - 45k
Europe - 20k
Africa - 37.5k

British Airways and partners (one-way mileage requirements from LAX)

North America - 12.5k
Hawaii/Mexico - 17.5k
South Pacific/Australia/NZ - 40k (partners) - 70k (BA)
South America - 20k (partners)
Far East - 25k (partners) - 60k (BA)
India/Maldives - 40k (partners) - 45k (BA)
Europe zone 1 - 25k
Europe zone 2 - 30k
Europe zone 3/Morocco/Israel/Tunisia - 32.5k
Middle East - 40k
Africa - 45k

But, since I earn 1.25 miles for every dollar on the BA card, the miles required should be divided by 1.25, which results in even lower mileage requirements:

North America - 10k
Hawaii/Mexico - 14k
South Pacific/Australia/NZ - 32k (partners) - 56k (BA)
South America - 16k (partners)
Far East - 20k (partners) - 48k (BA)
India/Maldives - 32k (partners - 36k (BA)
Europe zone 1 - 20k
Europe zone 2 - 24k
Europe zone 3/Morocco/Israel/Tunisia - 26k
Middle East - 32k
Africa - 36k

Comparing the "adjusted" BA miles to the AA miles required, it looks like I would earn tickets to every destination much faster with the BA card than the AA card. For example, if I wanted to go to Thailand, I would need to spend 35k dollars on AA to get a 1-way ticket, but only 20k with the BA card. That means, with my 50k of annual expenses, I could afford 1 and a half round trip tickets with the BA card, but wouldn't even be able to afford 1 round trip ticket on AA.

The notable exception is Central and Eastern Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Tunisia, which will require more miles than with AA. I also understand that I will have to pay about 500 dollars of taxes if I fly through London to any destination, but I can avoid this by flying a partner airline to Europe. Also, I can rack up miles so much faster with BA that spending 500 on taxes doesn't seem so bad, although it does sorta defeat the point of having a miles card.

If you have made it this far, thank you! I have never actually flown on a reward flight for either of these airlines, so I don't know whether AA's program is so vastly superior to BA's program that I should forget about all this analysis and go with AA or vice versa. What do you think? Am I correct in my analysis about earning rewards much faster with BA? What am I missing?