I will be making a few trips to Asia throughout this year and will probably earn enough miles to be on the lowest tier on either UA (silver) or AA (gold). Question is I don't know which is better.

On UA, most of the miles I will fly is with partner airlines. I mostly book UA for flights from LAX to my Asian base and then book other Star Alliance flights for within Asia since many of those are harder to find on UA's website. I already have the Explorer card so it seems that many of the Silver tier's benefits are already mixed in with the card.

On the other hand, almost all my Asian flights can be done on CX. I'm considering AA because I am based in LAX and it's easier to get to the lowest tier compared to Marco Polo (seems AA benefits are better as well?). I'm ok with booking the higher priced fares on Cathay in order to get the AA credit. But not sure if AA status is honored when I fly CX.

What your experiences with either of these programs? And what do you think is my best option?