Originally Posted by stargold

OP here.

So the only meaningful difference at the airport seems to be:

1. A marginally elevated chance of an Op-Up (which are generally so low anyway as to make it foolish to rely on it in any case); and
2. No lounge access on purely domestic AA itineraries.

Given that the extent of my AA travel is going to be the minimum 4 segments required in order to maintain the AA status, I don't think (2) will be a big problem, and (1) is pretty negligible.

Unless there's something else, I'm inclined to go for AA Plat in this case.