Originally Posted by jrobin
I agree totally, Dave. No question I could make AA Platinum on a challenge. However, imo, there is only a small chance I could retain Platinum based on my current travel spending. I accidentally happened to buy a K-class ticket this year, but more often have been in L or similar.
For a person like me flying discount economy, crediting to QF is clearly better for retaining status. The FF miles are a bonus.
I think what I need to consider is comparing the extra cost of higher priced tickets to retain AA Platinum (consistently buy at least K and possibly buy tickets on AA not QF/BA, and the cost in time and money of having to periodically do a mileage run in NA because AA does not have a good record of renewing folks who do not meet the official criteria) versus the extra value of the miles obtained on AA.
1. Any suggestions on how to approach that?
If going to Oz, then using the AA codeshare on the QF flight is a great way to do it cheaply since all the AA fares ( even N ) will earn 100% miles and the whole amount would count towards renewal. e.g. YYZ-LAX-SYD-LAX-YYZ will earn 19,327 miles towards the 50k renewal vs 130SCs earned to QF. Living in North America , it is quite easy to use the AA flight numbers to Oz.
Originally Posted by jrobin
2. This year, for example, Mrs. Jrobin used my QF points to travel YYZ-MEL-NAN-YYZ at the beginning of July.
The routing permitted by QF was YYZ-DFW-NRT-SYD-MEL-SYD-NAN-LAX-YYZ.
(a) How many AA points would this travel have taken? It was 137,000 QF points plus 2500 points assisted booking fee plus 5000 points award change fee.
(b) QF has always required her to route through NRT en route to Oz; any chance AA would have put her on LAX-MEL? (Searching for other possible AA benefits to justify the higher spending.)
To do YYZ-MEL-NAN-YYZ would cost 75k economy, 125k in business or 145k in first, though for that rate you would not be allowed to go via NRT but would have to do US-South Pacific non stop ( i.e. HNL-SYD, LAX-SYD/MEL/BNE/AKL ).
Also do note that QF will have charged a fair amount in "taxes" due to the fuel fines that they charge on award seats, whilst using AA points you would only have been charged actual taxes which would make a few hundred $ difference.
For the amount you paid in points, you could have sent her 1st class *and* saved a lot of money
Dave