Originally Posted by VegasGambler

Welcome. I'm not sure of your travel patterns but if you are paying for your own travel (as opposed to business travel on OPM) the "cheat code" for AA is to earn miles with partners (aa hotels and shopping portal mostly, augmented with some CC spend) which will get you LP (ie, status) as well as miles, and then use those miles for cheap domestic economy awards (you'll be eligible for upgrades with status) and partner business or first class international flights (the award chart is very good). Basically, never pay for flights.

If you do have to pay for a flight (no cheap awards), you get all your status benefits (MCE seating, free checked bags, eligible for upgrades) on basic economy fares. They are unchangeable and earn only 40% of the miles and LP, though, so there are some downsides, but it's not as bad as with other airlines.

When I did a search, I was shocked to see that DL was charging 180k miles for economy awards to Asia, and 495k for business. You can get partner business awards for 60k (JL, CX) and AA metal economy awards for as little as 23k (that's the cheapest I've seen recently, anyway). Partner awards are NOT dynamic so they will always be 60k for business (57.5k to Europe) if you can find them. Try to avoid BA to Europe -- they charge hefty fees. AY is your friend if you are ok connecting in Helsinki (also a great city and worth visiting in the summer, if you haven't been).

IMO it's easily the best program in the US if you are paying for your own flights (UA might be better if you do mostly business travel)

Enjoy!