tsg20

I used to live in Chicago, and have been a UA frequent flyer for about 7 years, ranging from the 50K-100K level. I've been at the 50K level for the last 4 or 5 years now.

3 years ago I moved to London, and most of my flying is now LHR-USA, in fact mostly LHR-ORD. I make between 4 and 8 trips to the US per year, almost all for work. Our work travel policy is that flights under 5 hours are in economy, and over 5 hours premium economy is allowed. I've been booking economy tickets on UA, but getting "economy plus", which basically means extra legroom (which is vital for me - I'm tall, and have to be able to stretch my legs out due to having had a lot of knee surgery).

I'm trying to decrease the amount I fly, but it's unlikely to ever go below 4 trips/year to the US. If I understand correctly, a return flight in premium economy LHR-ORD would earn 180 tier points, so 4 of those per year would be enough for Silver status on BA. This would appear to give me lounge access and priority security at LHR (which is roughly what I get from UA, in addition to the extra legroom).

Now, I'm guessing that BA premium economy is at least as comfortable as UA economy plus. There also seems to be a slightly better cabin baggage allowance (22x18x10 vs 22x14x9), which would be great for me as I usual fly carryon only, and my B+R carryon is now too big for UA. So it seems to me that I have:

Pluses:
- only need 4 US flights/year for mid-tier status
- probably more comfortable flights

Minuses:
- fuel surcharges on award tickets on BA appear to be pretty horrifying
- won't have status to start with
- can't use TSA Pre in the US (I have Global Entry, which is presumably unaffected)

The other option that had occurred to me was to fly BA but credit to AA. In particular, that would mean that if I ever got to 70k miles/year on BA, I'd get EXP status at AA, with systemwide upgrades the following year. On the other hand, I think I'd have to fly 4 AA flights/year, which might be tricky, and I'm not sure in what other ways I would be gaining, except possibly in lower fuel surcharges.

On other thing that I wondered was whether I could profitably status match my UA status to Air Berlin, and get lounge access that way for my first few BA flights - but would I then have to be crediting to them as well?

Any thoughts would be very welcome, especially pointing out mistakes in my thinking - I don't think I've flown BA in more than 10 years, so this is a bit of a leap in the dark for me!