Originally Posted by stuart_frequent_traveller
Hi I am Platinum Elite (Sky Team Elite Plus) with Flying Blue (AF/KLM) and *G with BMI. Flying blue is a disaster - I was orginally a plat card with FD and BMI are in such a mess with their modularisation that I am thinking of moving to other carriers.
I wondered which oneworld carrier would comp me - I fly about 20 transatlantic (Biz Cabin) sectors a year plus connecting UK domestic and inter european sectors.
I'm reluctant to do challenges but want to get equivalent benefits to those I have now. Any ideas?
Don't know if any would comp you, but you would satisfy a Gold challenge on AA on your first transatlantic (Biz Cabin) outbound leg, and satisfy a Platinum challenge on the return leg. LHR-JFK, for example, is 3452 miles. You would get 5178 q-points in each direction. You would get gold bonus (25%) on top of your class-of-service bonus on the outbound, and would get Platinum bonus (100%) on top of COS bonus on the return. With 20 transatlantic Biz sectors per year, you should top 100,000 q-points per year, giving you top-tier EXP (and OneWorld) status every year, even without your UK domestic and inter european travel. You could book the UK and european for AA miles or somebody else's miles, depending on fares and reciprocity percentages.
While this isn't strictly a comp, You would be mid-tier elite by the end of your first trip, and since that trip is in biz, you wouldn't miss any benefits except a few miles on the outbound leg. And since you don't mention any U.S. domestic flights, you wouldn't really miss any significant benefits during the first year as Platinum, while you are earning Executive Platinum (even if you did have a few U.S. domestic flights, you should have plenty of earned upgrades to use).
I'd recommend you pop on over to the AA forum and read up on challenges. The only catch is that you should plan on flying AA transatlantic.