Originally Posted by
number_6
But there has to be a BA flight in order to join BAEC; if a future one, and you cancel and then refund the ticket, BA will just close the BAEC account and you lose the miles. So it doesn't help the OP, who has no qualifying BA flight planned. He would have to arrange for an extra trip on BA, and it cannot be on one of the cheap BA ex-Germany fares (except for the I fares). BAEC would be worth more than QFF but QFF is easier to join. AAdvantage doesn't have awards for 10K miles.
I can assure you this is not the case! I have a BA account and I joined using a BA flight in a qualifying class yet credited to QF. Needless to say, the BA account was not closed. In fact my BA account does not have a single flight credited to it at this point in time.
Personally I would never recommend the QF programme to anyone starting off as whilst it does provide a little credit for even low earning fares under most carriers, it in general has to be the stingiest programme in OW.