Originally Posted by bowman
If I drop Australia (and add NRT - one of my must go:s) and do a ADONE3 instead it'll be:
[ ... snip ...]
Would it be possible? Any possible improvements from a status earning perspective? Another question: Does it matter if i have the AA metal segments early or late (from a AA status maximizing perspective)?
Are there status earning differences between the carriers that I should take in consideration?
The itinerary looks OK to me (not sure about segments in Europe), but I'm still new to this. It should not matter where your AA segments are, as you'll earn the same amount of qualifying miles in A or D on all carriers. To maximize your bonus miles you should aim to get to Platinum as quickly as possible though, as that'll get you the 100% miles bonus. You'll earn a 25% bonus for flights flown in D, and 50% bonus for flights in A.
However, note that for qualifying points there is no difference between A and D; you get a 1.5 points per mile flown. So for status qualification (rather than award mileage accrual), there's no difference between A and D. If you do the Platinum challenge, you could also go for BA Gold status. I don't remember whether US residents need 800 tier points (as we do in continental Europe), or whether BAEC has a higher threshold there. BA Gold is valuable for AA lounge access in the US.