AA sometimes has technical problems seeing (and thus booking) award flights on LAN which have availability showing elsewhere. But if your award flights will be on AA itself or other AA partners, that should not be an issue for you.
AA's website it much better than LAN's website in many ways.
And there are many more opportunities to earn AA miles without flying than earning LAN kms without flying (for those based in the USA, at least, as you will be).
Evaluating redemption rates is always tricky because you never know when airline X will devalue next and how. (For example, BA Avios redemption rates for LAN or AA longhaul business class went up by 50% earlier this year, so any comparison that someone would have made between BA and LAN before then would have been invalid after that change.)
And evaluating earning rates (on flights) and status qualification is also tricky, given that the two other major international airlines in the USA, Delta and United, have already shifted to a revenue-based earning system for redeemable miles and also added a "elite qualifying purchases" minimum for earning status. Since American and US Airways have been busy merging the past year or two, they've put off evaluating what, if any, changes to make to AAdvantage, but the merger process is getting closer to completion now, so who knows if and what they'll decide to do later this year or next year?
So all you can really evaluate is how it works this instant, but there's no guarantee that it'll continue to work that way for years.
Last edited by sdsearch; Jul 28, 2015 at 4:59 pm