I've been a loyal AA person for years but recently I have noticed that there are less and less decent fares that I can use out of SYD or AKL. I cannot get mileage upgrades on QF/CX/BA and I am unable to get seats on AA codeshare flights to where I want to go.

So, I am contemplating a defection to QF. Should I really do this? Since I mainly fly QF then this would enable me to get mileage upgrades on Qantas flights. But on a downside, I will lose plenty of points since I have no status on QF while I am AA Platinum. So, earning any status would mean losing plenty of bonus miles in order to achieve status on Qantas.

Should I change from AA to QF and if so then what would be the smoothest process for status change? i.e. how can I achieve equivalent status on QF without suffering the loss of AA priviledges? I plan to fly QF in J at least 5 times per year between OZ and Europe.

As a side question, if I buy a ticket SYD-FRA-SYD in J and the system spits out something different from QF-5/6 then how do I go about mileage upgrades? Does SYD-MEL-SIN-FRA-SIN-BNE-SYD count the same as SYD-SIN-FRA-SIN-SYD? Since the 2 stopovers are not my voluntary choise then why should I be penalised for it? If there is a penalty then it seems like a case for ACCC and Alan Fels.