Originally Posted by
felix1224
I guess my follow up question would be why AA or IB program would be attractive for my case if they are both revenue based. IB will give me OWS but only less than 20000 Avios, AA will get me OWR and 20k miles unless I have some segments got distance award. Agreed that orphan program(I laughed when I saw this term) is no good and AA program has better redeem ratio, less surcharge and possibly better availability; but 4 times more points in Avios could offset the disadvantages?
Most of AA's oneworld partners still earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points based on distance flown and booking code,
not cost. In fact, of the various carriers on your itinerary, only AA and BA would earn based on cost, and it's even possible that those segments would earn based on distance and booking code because this is a RTW ticket. You cannot count on that happening, but it's possible.
As just one example, here's what the AAdvantage earning chart for AY-coded flights looks like:
Have you verified that Iberia's new Avios-earning scheme applies to all partner carriers? This page from the Iberia site suggests otherwise:
Even when crediting AA flights to Iberia, you might earn based on distance and booking code if Iberia cannot "see" the fare attributable to the AA segment(s):
Note the "Excepciones" language. I do not know whether Iberia Plus will have access to the fare of each segment of a RTW ticket where IB did not sell the ticket.
As has been pointed out up-thread, you do need to be concerned about the cut-off date for the yearly earnings period on some FFPs, like AA's and IB's.
Good luck!