<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FoxPro:
And as we are talking C/F international here I think AA is way ahead of QF in every comparison.
Take a newcomer flying SYD-LHR return in biz (BA beds hopefully 
). Around 10K miles oneway.
AA will give PLAT status even for the first leg. So you'd get: 2 * 10K * 1,25 for biz + 100% for being PLAT and 20K for converting certs. Total of 70K miles or so.
QF will give 2 * 10K * 1,25 = 25K miles and 440 status credits. That makes you only Silver after 350 credits with 610 credits still to go to Gold. And you would only earn a single upgrade credit. You'd need five for a oneway upgrade SYD-LHR.
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I will concede that, thanks to the challenge it is easier to get AA Platinum. However, with your example, you would be 40% of the way to requalifying for AA Plat (20K / 50K) but 73.3% to the QF equivalent (Gold - 350 / 600).
And the other benefit is that you are 3.14% further to lifetime Gold on QF rather than only 1% towards lifetime AA Plat.
Also, whilst you get 1 upgrade credit for that trip, and you need 5 upgrade credits to upgrade SYD-LON, you don't need five trips. 3 is all that is required - not a truly fantastic figure but still a lot better than you've twisted the stats to suggest.
I also happily concede earning miles is better on AA. I also keep forgetting the cashing in Upgrades for miles - that's sure a nice benefit! I haven't used miles for rewards as yet so I'm not letting it affect me too much. I'll enjoy ADL-PER in business class on Wednesday though
So, it's probably better for you. But to say it's ahead "in every comparison" is incorrect.
Still - it's your situation we are dealing with so do the AA thing and enjoy them miles!
I also await (very) eagerly, the bonus miles applying to non-QF flights. I have no intention of putting large amounts of non-QF flights on my QF account until then.