Originally Posted by
The Man in Seat 9A
I am trying to choose between going for status on AA and AS ... I am based in the East Bay of the SF Bay area. I fly 80-100k miles a year for business. Regardless of where I seek status, once acheived I would fly AS anywhere I could get to nonstop, then AA anywhere else I can get to nonstop, then the easiest connection between them, with a preference for flying out of OAK on AS. I am happy to pay ~$100/hour for first class either as a fare differential or a paid upgrade. I am happy to align my credit card games with whatever strategy I choose ...
Question - for your 80-100K miles of flying, what fare classes are you booked in? I don't know AA's program that well, but from their chart on AS flights
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/...a-airlines.jsp ... suppose your business books you in the cheaper economy fare classes, then you won't actually get the full loyalty points - e.g. if you fly 100K miles but they're all booked in O or G fare, then you'll actually only earn 25% LPs so ... 25K. So if you want to retain AA Platinum Pro status in subsequent years, you'll have to find a way to earn 100K more LPs
For AS - I'm not fully sure how the new system awards status points for business travel (e.g. if your business uses concur) - but if you are able to book your business flights through alaskaair.com, then things become a bit more interesting. Because next year, we get a choice of whether we earn status points on miles flown, on spend, or on segments - obviously for you, choosing the miles flown option sounds ideal. In that case, you can easily requalify for AS 75K / Platinum status
Disclaimer - my coffee hasn't fully kicked in yet, so I'm interested in hearing what other people chime in with as well