Originally Posted by
DevilDawg1960
I will pass 100,000 EQP in early August and expect to fly another 50,000 miles in international J before the end of the year. I am looking at the option of banking points on another OW carrier instead of continuing to build AA miles. I expect to continue flying at the same pace for years. The idea would be to bank points in another OW program to compliment my AA miles. Avios seem to offer better options for shorter flights. My most likely use for awards are premium class to Europe, South Africa, and Australia/New Zealand. I would appreciate feedback on my strategy and suggestions for another OW program to bank miles in.
BA. Frankly, if the bulk of your flying is B or higher fare international flights I'd switch to BA as the primary program, buy Y+ or higher and and go for GGL. If you do enough shorter internal flights where buying F doesn't make sense and you value upgrades, then stick to AA as primary. You will lose the meals of course soon enough, so consider that when assessing the value of AA upgrades. OTOH trying to do BA from the east coast will require a bit more effort - though if you're hitting 50 EQPs in international J flights you have an outside shot at Gold on BA unless you're strictly doing something like JFK or RDU or MIA to LHR.
The key would be to angle for at least Silver on BA to get club access on internal US flights and bonus Avios. NB - most programs will require a minimum of flights on their own metal, so factor that in when you go for another program of course. Good luck and happy flying.
Originally Posted by
brewdog11
I'll keep my >100k eqp/eqm business on AA simply because AA is a good airline. The lack of elite rewards is a big disappointment, but you it's ridiculous to think that flocking to UA to achieve "over-entitled 1K" is the solution. That's just my $0.02, though.
We bash UA incessantly, then talk about switching to them when something on AA doesn't go completely our way (maybe not in this particular thread, but in general). What a crowd...
I think that's a tad unfair. Something wasn't going the way some would want it at AA when they took snack meals on shorter flights and turned them into a mini wrap or a small salad. I would have agreed it would have been an over-reaction to run back to UA when that happened.
At this point there are pretty strong suggestions of a regression to the mean, across the board. You can decide it's a mean you can live with, you can decide it's not true, I just don't think you can dismiss people who are annoyed, if not upset, at some of the confirmed changes with the airline. It's not worth re-hashing in any detail, frankly, and it's not by any means a straight "run to UA" story here, but there are changes to meals in F, changes to premium strategy across the board to align closer to USAir, changes to the redemption options in the FFP and so on ... hedging across multiple airlines is something anyone with any kind of strategic thinking and the ability to do so due to flying volume should consider. If AA doesn't want to lose business from its EXPs it could try sending a more positive message that it is doing right now. Hush hush, underhanded "try to fly more and we'll see what we can do" hardly counterbalances all the concrete and confirmed changes to the negative. To me, if you can keep your foot in multiple places right now and you choose not to you're being more optimistic than all the recent news would warrant. YMMV of course.