Ah, ok, I'd not read the terms of the current status match and assumed it applied to AA as well as the other airlines, my bad. In any case for an exec platinum flying pattern it's not going to be difficult to shift through the gears and get silver and then gold. In terms of benefits, if you're flying in J then you get lounge but probably you'd be taken by surprise by having to pay for seats.

Surely buying Avios is spending something near or above the value of the AA miles, and much more than the floor value of the Avios? So I dont really see the point of that. You might as well just credit them, bearing in mind that if you have too many AA miles than you can spend, any more that are earned are essentially valueless anyway.