Originally Posted by
MoofuJJ
Exec Plat, have been flying a fair bit in the past, however this year, I was doing some math and think I will be around $2-$3k EQDs away from re qualifying for Exec Plat. I was reading about some options on what I could do (other than simply paying the difference or the like) and saw some topics on Premium Fare deals with partner airlines.
From what i understand, flying on some partner airlines allows the to calculate your EQDs based on miles flown, rather than dollar spent. Based on your fare class, it calculates your EQDs based off the mileage and some fare class ratio. My question is, how do I get started looking for things like this? I would definitely be interested in taking a long flight somewhere just for the EQDs i could get, but from what ive read, theres a lot of specific fares and other things to know
Generally speaking, finding a cheap long haul flight in a premium cabin will yield the best EQD per mile results. Premium Economy can often be the sweet spot. You can look at the partner earning pages at aa.com to see exactly how many EQD, EQM etc you will earn for each booking code on each partner airline.
For example, I see lots of decent PE fares on CX this fall, JFK-SIN roundtrip for $1900. Looking at the
CX Earning Page at aa.com, discount PE fares earn 20% EQD of miles flown. So a JFK-HKG-SIN roundtrip would be around 19k flown miles resulting in $3800 EQD for the $1900 ticket.
But if all you need is $2k EQD, you really need to find something for around $1k to make it worthwhile, otherwise you're better off just spending $2k on a ticket and going where you want to go. Check BA fares, decent deals in PE from the US to Europe. I see a $900 roundtrip PE fare from LAX-ARN for example that would earn around $2500 EQD.