I wonder if people would mind posting their thoughts on a decision I am trying to make. I currently use AAdvantage for all my miles and in the past have travelled a lot and enjoyed many great long distance, premium class trips thanks to that. My normal useage of AA miles has been to book BA NCW/First trips.

I am at the stage where I haven't done a lot of paid travel for a while and have used up virtually all my miles. If ever there was a time switch FF programmes, then it is now.

So, usually I believe that when people are travelling a lot of premium paid flights ex LON, BAEC is the best bet; for more leisure focused travel (and miles on discounted Y, at least on AA, then Aadvantage is usually more attractive).

However, I am thinking quite seriously about moving to BAEC. These are the reasons:
1. For my LH leisure, I am at the stage in life where I think WT+ will become the norm for 3-4 leisure trips a year. With this, plus occasional work trips, I think I will comfortably manage to get silver and retain it.
2. There is also the possibility of a DONE4 towards the end of next year, in which case I might scrape Gold (and maybe even retain it, with an EC addressed account).
3. MFU is obviously a big attraction if I am regularly paying for WT+.
4. Another consideration is that the two places I most frequently fly in the US on leisure are SFO & BWI, neither of which are non-stop on AA (for the sake of discussion, lets assume the WT+ roills out to BWI by the time it matters).
5. I can still fly AA on internal US flights and get miles and (sometimes cheap) tier points.

So, although I know that the redemption level for awards is a lot higher on BA for complete award flights, I'm thinking that most of my miles will be used for MFU (WT+-NCW). So in fact at 50k per round trip, its the same as upgrading on AA (albeit from a cheaper, AA Coach ticket, to an inferior Bus. Class product).

Cheekily, although I would NEVER expect it and its bad form to discuss it here, I can't help thinking that as Silver (possibly Gold) sitting in paid WT+, you have better odds of the occasional Op-Up than from AA Coach - Bus.

Any thoughts or ideas would be happily received.
Thanks.