Originally Posted by
PupManS
Hi Folks-
Due to a breakup with Delta (I just can't abide how they handled the crowd strike meltdown this summer) I am a bit more of a free agent. I have seen various AA vs Alaska threads in the past but this is a bit different.
Most of my work travel is paid front cabin; I'm based in RNO and find myself going RNO-LAX-NYC regularly. Also India and London. IN the last few months, Alaska has become MUCH more interesting for leisure travel for me - they announced RNO-SAN, they are adding some LAX flights, and now merging with Hawaiian they are a viable alternative to Southwest which was previously my family leisure provider of choice. I do not envision flying Alaska a lot for work- on the transcons I prefer flatbed and I connect through LAX vs SEA for resiliency reasons...but I will have some work travel with them. At the same time, I do not have much use for AA for leisure travel; they don't go where I want and AA as a domestic airline is not good.
I'm trying to decide where to bank miles. My strategy historically has been to quality for low-level elite on every airline I use just to get good phone numbers for when things hit the fan, but I think with the time remaining in the year I can get to a mid-tier on one or the other. I'm trying to figure out what helps more- better earning policies, better ticketing flexibility in bad spots, upgrades on leisure travel, etc. Looking for any thoughts.
I do not plan on exclusivity- I do a fair bit of B6 and UA as well- so I don't see 100k or EP as realistic, but definitely mid-tier.
You might consider that you can book AS tickets and assign your FF miles to your AA account. Spouse and I fly them both frequently, though we also fly UA (both of us GS) and are based in SFO and SJC. We truly like AS, despite its glitches in its IT and website workings. Their fares beat the pants off UA's to Hawaii and other places, and we routinely book their routes from SJC HNL, or even KOA, for almost half of what UA charges for its F product.
Wife got miffed that she was going well over the 100 MVP threshold for status for next year, and both of us beat the mark in July. Since Minicucci seemed to spread the word (via the
customer Care rep comments to us and others) that
AS would not roll over eqm over 100 for next year, we just started flying every body else, (within reason, of course, by price). An AS agent showed her how to assign AS miles on our SJC-HNL routes to AA, and it has worked like a charm. She is now EXP on AA for next year as well. AS benefits because it pocket the airfare $$. She benefitted by making EXP, which has good perks for going over the 200,000 mi threshold, unlike AS going over 100 for MVP. She is way over 2mm redeemable miles anyway.
On competing routes, UA simply doesn't provide value per dollar for the product we fly, so we're comfortable with keeping to AS and AA as our main carriers. Truth be told, both are weak in their non-stop options out of SFO to much of the world compared UA, not to mention UA's overpriced fares.
Now DL is a different story. They are a good carrier, but comparative fare prices are generally up there compared to AS to where we fly. We both have lifetime status on DL anyway, so that is a fall-back if we need to take them. They have 9-10 non stops daily SFO-JFK, and that is probably our main route. AA flagship in F works great there. AS flights are competitive on price in F for the most part on that route, just that there are only 3-4 /day
Sum up: Consider assigning miles to AA on AS booked tickets. It has worked well for us.