Originally Posted by
THE soni
Thanks for the help everybody (especially wanafly... that was more comprehensive than i could imagine!). To answer someone's question, the majority of my travel will probably be overseas, and a majority of that will likely be to Asia (HK, China, India, etc...). Also, most of the time I would buy a Y and hope for an upgrade to C/J (with the occasional C/J to F hopes). Seems to me that the way to go would be Oneworld, with AA as my domestic program. Then I could fly BA to Europe and CX to Asia (I've flown CX many times, and love them, plus my mom is a MP Diamond, and the service she gets is incredible, and that FC HKG lounge... I could live there!). I understand that I would get my status match when crediting to AA for these flight, but my question is can I still use my "AA miles" when trying to get a miles upgrade on CX or BA? Or do the OW partners not really use your "home" airline miles to upgrade on the flight you are taking?
Again, thanks for the help! I think I'm going to enjoy being an FT'er if everyone is this friendly!
As I tried to explain, you have a trade off between product and upgrades.
A) AA and BA have a major exclusion: No miles can be earned on the other's planes between the US and London. AA maintains this to be because of anti-trust issues as AA and BA combined own the London-US market. With open skies I would hope for this to change but doubt it will as AA does not want to loose their FFs to BA.
B) As a rule, one can only upgrade on an airline's own metal using that airlines currency.
- Exceptions: UA participated in Star upgrades valid on a handful of Star carriers requiring more miles and only full (very expensive) fares. If you will usually be traveling on the cheapest fare on that airline available, this would not be an option. The cheapest qualifying would often be 4X the cheapest avail.
- CX miles can be used to upgrade on AA and BA from very expensive coach only. If you credit to CX, you earn about 50% the miles you would earn with your flying crediting to AA.
So what do you prefer:
Option 1)
Originally Posted by
jwrhn
If the majority of of your travel is to Asia and other overseas destinations then you might want to consider the asiamiles/Oneworld program, the partners include aa, cx, ba, jal and others because on the whole in my opinion they are just better than any american airline.
You get a better airline.
In coach most of the time as you wont earn enough Asia Miles from flying to upgrade more than maybe 20% of the time.
For example, effective this Oct, it would take 80,000 Asia Miles to upgrade CX JFK-HKG-PEK round trip. You would earn 18,612 Asia miles flying it. So enough miles to upgrade every 4.5 trips...the rest of the time you are in coach.
Crediting the same CX flights to AA as an EXP, you would earn twice the miles but could not upgrade if flying CX...AA miles will only upgrade AA flights. AND they give you 8 systemwide certs every year good to upgrade any AA itinerary.
So you choose:
CX coach most of the time, 20% of the time in business class
VS
AA business most of the time, 20% of th time in coach when the upgrade doesn't clear.
I like CX business class better than AA but I find that AA business class blows away CX coach class!
If you have say $500K in credit card spend, you could bank with Asia Miles and earn enough credit card miles to upgrade most of your CX flights. Otherwise your choice is most of the time coach on CX or most of the time business on AA. I would obviously choose AA!
Originally Posted by
THE soni
Then I could fly BA to Europe and CX to Asia
Note that lounge access is a Oneworld benefit so even though BA have a no AA miles earned US-London exclusion, you still would get BA F class access and CX F class access when flying Oneworld carriers. (Tip: CX has a nice F lounge at LHR in the same terminal AA flies from). Fly AA so you can upgrade, use CX's LHR lounge. And your AA status will get you into the CX's Wing or Pier at HKG...the nicest lounges in the world.
Originally Posted by
THE soni
my question is can I still use my "AA miles" when trying to get a miles upgrade on CX or BA? Or do the OW partners not really use your "home" airline miles to upgrade on the flight you are taking?
Right, cannot do. AA miles are good for AA upgrades only. And this is not just a Oneworld thing; it is an airline thing.
My advice to you is to choose AA. Here is what your travel will look like:
- Start out with a Platinum challenge, as StSebastian pointed out. This is a shortcut to AA mid-tier status. One international AA trip will get you Platinum status using this shortcut. Call to sign up. Normally you would need to fly 50,000 miles to get here.
- Your first trip will really stink. You will have no benefits with no status. Try to upgrade with miles if you can...try the waitlist if you can...they sometimes clear at the last minute. Transfer any Starwood points you have now to AA to give you some miles to upgrade with.
- Your second trip...you now have AA midtier status. This includes double miles earning and business class lounge access and a better chance of upgrading but no systemwide upgrade certificates yet...things won't get really good until you have flown 100K miles the first time. From then on...life is good. Check out AA.com and read and re-read the benefits of Platinum status to make sure you understand them. Readind the AA wiki would also help you a lot (in the AA section of Flyertalk).
- Once you reach EXP, between your VIP system wide upgrade and the number of miles you will be earning, you can now request an upgrade for every flight.
When going to Europe:
If you can score paid business class I suggest:
- Connect in HEL on Finnair for their superior business class product. Unlike BA there are no AA mile restrictions and you will earn your elite bonus when flying them.
When buying coach,
- You will want to fly on AA planes in order to upgrade. If not going to a destination AA flies to, you would fly AA JFK-LHR then continue on BA in coach LHR-anywhere Europe. You would upgrade the AA JFK-LHR with your miles or VIPS once you have them. Another option would be JFK-BRU and connect on SN from BRU-anywhere Europe. SN is not part of Oneworld but is an AA partner and does earn you AA miles.
When going to Asia:
If you can score paid business class, CX all the way! And earn 2X the miles CX would give you by crediting to AA.
If you paying for coach, you need to fly AA metal so you can upgrade. JFK-NRT on AA, then NRT-Asia on CX or JAL. You will always have F class lounge access even flying coach once you make EXP.
When going to South America:
Fly AA; they have the largest network of anybody and you can upgrade on them. If flying paid business, choose LAN for a superior product while earning lots of AA miles.
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For credit card:
The best long term credit card for earning AA miles is the Starwood Amex. You earn Starwood SPG points then transfer them to AA at 20K SPG : 25K AA. You earn 25% more miles this way than if you were to use the Citibank AA credit card.
I suggest you also sign up for one Citi AA Amex and one Citi AA Mastercard right now...just for the sign up bonuses. Use each card for a month then put them in your drawer. 20K miles + 20K miles = 40K free AA miles from Citibank for a little of your time. This will especially help you starting out to have some miles to upgrade with before you earn EXP and have the VIPs. Also remember that upgrading with miles will cost you a co-pay; upgrading with VIPs have no co-pay. Life will get better.
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I suggest you read and re-read my posts until you can remember everything; they are full of information to help you make the best decision and make your travel far more comfortable.