Originally Posted by
Apieinthesky
Did you read that tread? The overwhelming majority of posts there defend AA's program. I'm pretty sure Skymiles is pretty consistently regarded as inferior to AAdvantage there as well.
Yes, I posted in the thread and quoted someone, which is why I'm familiar with it.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21607316-post28.html
A lot of the posts are pointing out that AA own-metal availability (as well as some partners) is no great shakes, and has been going downhill recently.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21606200-post19.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21606857-post21.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21606943-post22.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21607521-post31.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21607568-post32.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21607769-post33.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21608351-post42.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21611472-post60.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21611562-post61.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21611604-post63.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21616581-post81.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21618799-post85.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21619114-post86.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21619355-post87.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21621425-post88.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21630099-post90.html
This doesn't strike ME as "an overwhelming majority" saying AA is the best EVAR- this strikes me as a number of people noticing some significant program changes in the recent past, and not for the better. There is a decent argument to be made that a *A carrier (such as US or UA) might have more award availability than a oneworld one (one of the few things UA didn't hose completely post-merger is the award chart, and they actually removed Starnet blocking). Please note that I told the OP not to completely discount using US. UA could also be a viable option too.
Oh, and one of the carriers called out as a great award partner for AA is CX. Guess what? AS has identical access to CX inventory as AA does. There's an argument to be made that for someone based in North America, having AS+AA+DL+BA+KL+AF+CX+EK+LA+FJ+KE award inventory is not exactly all that shabby. So I don't think "go AA" is a slam-dunk- it might be but it's not categorical. It all boils down to what the OP wants to do. Since they haven't come back to clarify what their priorities are (upgrades? premium class awards? lounge access?), we're left to guess.