Originally Posted by
ivanjay205
Hi all,
Looking for the best program for me if anyone can assist...
1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
>>> Reply: Points to travel for free with family for vacation. First class is a nice perk as I find it way more "workable" in terms of room for a laptop etc.
2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
>>> Reply: About 7,000-20,000 miles a year. Often very short hops on the eastern US (out of NY) but the occassional west coast or midwest trip. Generally flying 1-2 times a month
3. What fare class do you usually buy?
>>> Reply: When the fare difference is not huge first class, otherwise economy.
4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply: Work but we have no restrictions as we are a small company
5. Which routes do you fly most often?
>>> Reply: Totally depends on client needs. We go wherever the project is so it varies
6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: Long Island NY so LGA, JFK, ISP are all local for me
7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply: American Platinum (but that was a stretch this year and gold would be more expected) with about 90,000 miles banked. But I have miles with Delta, Jetblue, and southwest from previous travel as well.
8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply: Has been American but considering delta due to rollover miles and better upgrade potential (not sure if that is accurate at lower tier)
I am trying to decide if switching over to Delta would be a good move for me. Some observations:
1. Being a less frequently traveler rollover MQM’s seems like a HUGE benefit to me
2. Lack of mileage expiration is a good thing too
3. Upgrades solely on priority is probably beneficial although I am sure I will rarely get them (I earned 4 500 mile upgrades all of last year on American as this was my first year with status so I view them as pretty much worthless)
4. I am very concerned about the mileage value though. Everything I read says Delta’s miles are the most worthless in the industry
5. Giving up my status and 90,000+ miles on American. Of course I would try to use them via free flights so I don’t lose them but I did just earn platinum status for next year
6. Maybe just something I seem to notice but the Delta planes tend to be more recently upgraded and just feel more comfortable
Thoughts? I would just go the jetblue route but I do enjoy the first class room. So the real question is Delta vs American. Again the flight times and connections seem to be the real issue on American.
Thanks so much for the time to respond!
thanks
I think you would be best served sticking with AA, at least for one more year. Delta's rollover MQMs only kick in above the first tier (25k MQMs for silver), so if you don't hit that, then you won't get any benefit from that. Additionally, if your top priority is traveling with the family for free, then right now AA's ffp is more valuable. They've already started shifting towards the DL/UA model with their changes for next year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them continue to devalue going to 2017 onward, but for 2016, AA will still have a more valuable program than DL and UA. It'll be especially good for you next year, since you've managed to hit plat.
Another thing to note is that even if you hit silver on Delta, you will rarely be upgraded flying out of LGA/JFK. I've heard that some of the smaller, regional flights out of those airports aren't too bad on the upgrade list, but if you're flying somewhere like the west coast, Atlanta, or Chicago, then you have virtually no chance of being upgraded as silver. As painful as it is, your best upgrade shot is slowly accumulating 500 mile stickers with AA and then cashing them in.
As for your last point, I actually agree that Delta's hard product is better. Better planes, better operational service, etc. I'm just not sure that you travel enough to make that benefit counteract the decrease in frequent flyer rewards that you'll experience. If you think you'll have a significant uptick in travel in the future, then maybe you could consider preemptively swapping to Delta to start building lifetime rewards, but otherwise I would say enjoy your AA plat status in 2016 and revisit this question next year if/when AA announces big program changes for 2017 and your status drops back down.