Ok people - this is my 2 cents worth of comments too.

I am MPO GOLD and AA EXP-Emerald.

I had decided earlier last year to give up and ocncentrate on AA when CP quit OneWorld. But once I figured out the amount of travel I had to do, realised that I could split equally my flights on OneWorld and stil attain CX GOLD renewal and qualify for AA Executive Platinum as well.

The advantages to CX GOLD is the high priority and guarantee of economy class seats within 72 hours of travel. Note that you can get confirmed seats on cheapie consolidator's seats too. Having said that, you can almost be assured that chances of you being upgraded at the airport is quite high on a full flight.

The downside to CX is that there are no loyalty bonuses, and the award requirements are quite high. The 'Diamond' upgrade perk is not guaranteed either, and that you require 120K miles to get here whereas on AA you only need 100K.

There are bonuses to AA's program but note that if you want to redeem CX flight awards, you may only do so ORIGINATING from North America and that upgrades are good on Full Y to J or any J fare to F class. The award requirements are also so much lower than CX's AsiaMiles. 40K on AA's award for an upgrade reward (only upgrade awards may originate from either Asia or USA) compared to AsiaMiles' 95K!

Having said that, as my travel dwindles somewhat considerably, I will be dumping CX's GOLD programme and concentrate all my flights on AA's now that I have more or less relocated to San Diego.