This is an interesting commercial decision on the part of *A. BA Gold/OWE gives me access to American main cabin extra seats at booking (United just gives bad seats in steerage) as well as three checked bags vs. one bag on United. This has the effect of guaranteeing I will (almost) always choose American over Untied for tickets inside the US and that in turn affects my loyalty to LH (i.e., I value BA Gold much more highly than LH Senator, even though I live in *A territory). So I would argue that this *G policy makes *G less valuable and less desirable than the equivalent oneworld status levels (emerald and sapphire) and should be re-evaluated.