Originally Posted by
Brobbel
I know, but I don't travel much outside Skyteam, so I don't reach status at all (only at AA when reaching a million miles).
You may be able to get status with AA with just one flight on AA metal from Europe to the US via a Challenge, and if timed right it could last you a year and a half.
But if you don't travel much outside Skyteam, I doubt status is important to you until you being traveling (though if the only way you travel is on business awards with partners, even then I'm not sure how much status wiould get you that the business award ticket wouldn't already).
Originally Posted by Kiwi Flyer
In my experience *A is much better for awards between NZ/Oz and Europe than OW, especially in premium cabins, and with lots of routing options. That said, M&M awards are not cheap (in general AA awards require a fraction of the number of miles).
The other thing to keep in mind is that in many cases availability
is simply cost! Most airlines have discount awards (which is the ones everyone wants to use, and the only kind often mentioned), and then non-discount awards, which are double. The double-miles-cost awards are almost always available. So are you saying that the discount awards on *A cost more, or are you just saying that you have to use the double-miles-cost awards on *A more? Because the double-miles-cost awards are available on AA too, and if you're willing to "pay" more miles, then most any award is available on AA too. (It's just that most people call an award only being available at double miles as "not avialable".)
The other thing to keep in mind is that availability (at other than double miles) is strongly related to various factors like your travel flexibility (schedule as well as routing) and the number of people traveling (experiences of someone who travels by themselves are not relevant to someone who wants to travel on awards as a family, or vice versa -- unless the reporting is based on ExpertFlyer counts rather than actual bookings).