FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Calculating QF points for a RTW itinerary
Old Nov 16, 2014, 2:53 am
  #7  
number_6
Original Member
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Portland OR Double Emerald (QF and AA), DL PM/MM, Starwood Plat
Posts: 19,589
About 5-10% of QFF awards are cheaper than Aadvantage, so while AA is usually better it depends on your specific redemption goals. For the high-value awards AA is usually half price (AA has small premium for J/F awards compared to QFF). Rather ironically you can redeem some AA flights in USA cheaper using QFF than Aadvantage (short economy flights for example). Bottom line is you cannot assume point equivalence or a single conversion rate, it varies a lot with your earn/burn pattern. DONE6 can get you to Emerald status on QFF but not on AAdvantage though you'd have to work your specific routing out. Have fun.

As an aside, optimizing these DONEx is a black art, with great variance in flight quality (enjoyment). For example MIA-SCL is far worse than JFK-EZE on AA in D (I would have routed JFK-BDA-JFK-EZE/SCL for this reason). Big difference in crew bases for AA these days and JFK is very competitive market so AA has great facilities such as catering there.
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