Friends,

I will be moving on from my current employer at the end of this year to a much better position at a much smaller company.

I currently hold AA platinum with just over 50K BIS miles each year and Starwood Platinum due to my moderate business travel.

My new position is going to require substantially more travel (particularly on the hotel side) as I will actually be splitting my time between my home office and their HQ a few states away.

After speaking with their corporate travel agent I learned that this company's policy is to either select the lowest coach airfare/hotel room (ok, I've dealt with that all along, usually AA cooperates) or, preferably, book air travel using their corporate amex's rewards points (not sure what the small business equivalent of MR is called.)

Eek. This means that not only will I have zero opportunity to upgrade flights (as far as I know no airline lets you upgrade mileage flights) but also I will not be able to re-earn status on any particular carrier since each of my "free' flights will not earn EQMs or segments or anything - a really nasty double whammy.

I know that it sounds crazy that I am even concerned about this, since I certainly am not about to decide about a job opportunity based upon FF benefits, however the intense amount of travel that this position requires would be made far more pallateable were I able to enjoy FF benefits. At this point I am far less concerned about upgrades and miles and moreso about security lines, phone assistance, help in delay situations, etc.

I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions that anyone may be able to offer, surely someone had to cope with a situation such as this in the past.

Best, Lewis

P.S. FWIW I don't disparage my new company for trying to save some travel $ - it's not the late 90s anymore and I wouldn't want to go to work for anyplace that still acted as though it were.