Originally Posted by
coxm
received an email from AA yesterday that in order to maintain CK I would need an additional $10k spend on AA flights operated on AA metal either between my two international flights in November or between December 2 and January 31 to maintain (e.g. they know I have $10k worth of travel booked already and the AA segments won’t count towards this “challenge”)
as an SF based flyer, it is pretty frustrating that an approximately $75k ($85k if i did. the challenge) spend on AA (with travel on joint venture code shares) isn’t worthy of CK when there is another game in town. But, for a high spend like me, the only real benefit I lose is the email address and the very occasional Escalade transfer in LAX or DFW (but it isn’t often enough), and the FL access in Chicago or LAX (as it is too far out of the way in Dallas and JFK I’m flying business/first and have it anyhow)
oh well...the shiny luggage tag was a nice present last year.
This is exactly why CK is sort of a joke status level for most AA frequent flyers. It's completely unrealistic and unattainable for most posters on this board and not worth chasing, in my opinion.
And if one is somehow drawn to the prospect of achieving CK nevertheless, I would suggest considering what benefits you're really chasing. To me, I want to ensure I'm sitting in a premium cabin (J/F) with the best possible lounge access while paying the lowest price possible. I pay far less for EP status and can pay for J/F when I clearly won't be upgraded (or just don't want to play the lottery or want to reserve a specific seat/meal, etc.), so I'd be grossly overpaying to get CK as opposed to buying the other benefits individually.
EP provides most of the benefits I need, and I can pay for the rest, use non-AA OWS to access the FL, buy J and upgrade to A (or just buy F or use miles) if I really want FFD, etc.
It's crazy to me to think that people would intentionally pay for higher fare classes or take additional flights simply to try to achieve CK. Most people who are organically reaching that amount of spend aren't spending their own money and, ethically, shouldn't be spending someone else's money unnecessarily.
The rest of the CK benefits are sort of gravy (waived copays, tarmac transfers, email support, upgrade priority), and even though they'd be nice, they're not worth an incremental spend of $25-50k to me (or increasing my ratio of spend to miles flown or whatever criteria they actually use).
Just look at how many CKs in this thread are disappointed with the benefits like inconsistent tarmac transfers, hold time/automated menus on the CK line, etc. Is it really worth going out of one's way to attempt to achieve CK? Not in my mind, anyway.