Originally Posted by
pdxparse
Great information - thank you! I think it makes sense to fly back PTY-MIA-JFK-SFO/LAX to get AA's new product. I'm thinking about signing up for their credit card to get the 40,000 bonus miles and booking everything with AA. If I had more business travel this year, I'd do the Challenge and get Platinum this year, but I might save that for the future. Wish I had booked one of those $400+ fares!
If you're based out of SFO or LAX, this is still a no brainer. Getting too/from PDX makes it a little less interesting, but still a pretty great ticket if you primarily fly AA.
Just FYI there's a 50k version of that card. It trades the $100 statement credit for another 10k miles.
The positioning is what's holding me up as well. The deal is great, and I'm really wanting to get some time on AA's new planes and do the plat challenge, but I'd have to position from OKC, which is a pain.
OKC-LAX RT is $400++. I can drive to DFW and then it's ~$250 RT, but that's still $1100 ai which isn't as compelling. I can non-rev/standby there and back for ~$150, but that seems pretty risky given my trip dates are during spring break (mid March).