<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Uli:
Thanks for your info, Spider!
BTW the people at BA Germany say approval for comping Star Gold to BA Silver would be a piece of cake.
I am close to be conviced that AA is THE choice for me -- the only stone in my way is that I cannot fly to US using the Concorde in this scenario. Or is their a workaround? Put the miles in a BA account and transfer it?</font>
If you are planning not to use AA very much afterwards, then I wouldn't suggest joining it. Each of the OW carriers require you to do at least 4 segments a year on them as well as other point requirements to maintain tier statuses. If your main travel is going to be with CX, then I would suggest joining CXs scheme. If your travel is likely to be in J and F , then the BA and QF schemes are ( imo ) the best for reaching required points for tier levels. If you get complimentary silver with BA, then you will quickly on the trip reach the points requirement for the renewal a year later and get most of the way towards attaining Gold status.
As far as using Concorde goes... nothing to stop you flying on it, they don't ban AA members, they just will give you no points for it
If you are doing an RTW in F, you might seriously want to look at QF, very similar scheme to BA, they may comp you, but if they don't , it doesnt matter, since you would be through the statuses v quickly anyway but they are currently doing a deal with RTW that allows you to upgrade for free to Concorde for the transatlantic leg
Dave