Originally Posted by
JumpinJackFlash
Hi all,
Last year I made FB Gold after a lot of inter-continental trips (my first elite status on any airline!). I'm based on Paris but have a US address as well.
I carried over 2,500 level miles, but it will be difficult to make Gold again (60k miles) as I have a lot less work travel this year.
I got an offer for an FB Gold Amex with a bonus of 20k miles (prime), but it seems difficult to earn level miles using the Amex.
Is it worth going through the effort of trying to get the Amex and maintain FB Gold? If I changed my FB address to the US, I would only need 40k level miles (which seems more feasible). But then would I be able to simultaneously hold the Amex (on a French address) with a FB account on a US address?
Or should I just give up on FB and go back to my Delta Skymiles account, where it seems only 50k miles is needed for Gold?
Appreciate any insights on the relative merits of these choices - I'm relatively new to FF programs and am find them to be way too complicated!
I'm getting a bit lost as to what you are trying to do. In effect, very few purchases made through Amex will earn you level miles - in practice, mostly purchases of AF-KL tickets so chances are that if you buy them, you will fly them anyway, and if so, the Amex card becomes almost irrelevant you'll end up mostly earning from your flying rather than from your Amex purchases.
So your only real question is are you going to need to fly ST enough to keep FB gold. That said, frankly, if I was primarily US based which I assume you are, I'd choose to join DL rather than FB any day, even with the significant devaluation of the programme in recent years.