Now this is very interesting. And I am facing a difficult choice here:

In Nov and Dec of this year, I will have some trips on AA and AA codeshared flights. Based on the calculation I just did, those trips will accumulate about 25K AA miles. I am now debating with myself if I should do a same day MR to reach EXP or not ... Very hard for me to choose because:

1. This might be the only chance I can be an EXP of AA in at least a few years' time.
2. I am based in Australia, and do not have a lot of chance to fly on AA metals, which means 95% of chance I will not be able to re-qualify for EXP after 2014. Maybe the best I can aim for next year is to re-qualify Platinum?

So I am asking for the advice of people here, do you think the extra benefit of EXP to Platinum member, which I am not sure if I can use on QF or AY flights, worths me spending 1-2 days (I will only have 2 weeks in the States) and a couple of hundred bucks?