jinglish

One thing that I already know will work in my favor is elite qualification. Yes, I'll have to worry about spending now, and I won't earn as many redeemable miles along the way, but because DL tracks distance and spending separately I'll at least get my flown distance in qualification miles. As someone who's tended to fly at least as far on partners (internationally) as on AS every year, the reduced earning rates on cheap partner fares have been hurting my ability to attain higher status with AS.

AS's customer service has been a huge differentiator for me, particularly from phone reps--they have always been very helpful, and I've even received a few unannounced, preemptive upgrades when I've called in to fix a ticket after a schedule change--but I've heard a lot of complaints from others around here recently about a decline in service quality as AS has hired more amid the digestion of VX. And I've experienced some of that too; when I had a partner award schedule change a couple of years ago, I had to call in again to actually accomplish anything, because the first agent just read off my new flight numbers and departure times and failed to reissue the ticket. Meanwhile, while I was trying to book an award on AF last month but wasn't able to do so on their site, a DL twitter rep actually called me to confirm some details before confirming the booking. So the grass is a little less green on this side, and apparently not totally parched on the other.