I would get AA PLAT no matter what, soon. At least you will be earning upgrades and double miles when you do fly them. You use Carlson as your TA, as I have to. And your companies % discounts/contracts are the ones "prefering" AA/UA/DL, not Carlson.

Often, i will see AA flights that are the cheapest, and have the time in First, when everyone else is in Coach. But there is no way to know what the difference is between our discounts and yours. Generally, they work like this..

Deep Discount Coach Fares = no discount
Discount Fares = 12% off
Full Fare Economy/Discount First, and Full Fare First = 33% off.....


When flights get full, or you are booking 1-2 weeks out and all the Deep discount is gone, you can often find that 33% off the higher price is what will come up. And the important thing about this, is that as AA PLat, all will have you sitting up from. Full Fare Economy gets you there with no stickers, if there is room. Discount and Regular first get you there too, of couse.

Out of WAS, I would give UA and AA a good testing. Make UA comp you, take the AA challege. But do not compare top tier UA to Plat AA. You need to fly 100k with AA to get the full benefits.....

Also, MRTC is gone on AA. But, on most places, if you know where to sit (Generally ahead of the exit row), than the seats haven't moved. Get familiar with Seatguru.com

You will want PLAT and UA just to grab exit rows, if you can.