quartercentury

So, I was looking into my current status, and I've gotten close to 41K in AQM this year, plus dDiamond status through 2014. I'm currently using the Amex Aeroplat, but I'll be scrapping it, as the main feature (MLL access) is given at AP 35K, and the insurance I can get on another card.

The big thing at 50K is *Gold (for lounge, boarding, and check-in), but one of the choices at 35K is *Business Lounge access worldwide. While priority check-in and boarding is nice, I'm a stickler for lounge access.

Do you guys think it's worth it for me to do a MR for the missing 9.6K? I ask because I find it really difficult to find any cost-effective routes from YUL or even YYZ that don't go too overboard, so I'm wondering if I should just settle with Elite 35 and go on with my life...

CdnFlier

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Take a $700 trip on United to Hawaii.

But really, it depends on your travel plans for next year and how much you travel on other *A airlines. *G really is handy though.

DrDogger

The new co-pay on international eupgrades for Altitude tiers below SE dramatically de-values E50 in my opinion. Used to be that E50 would allow you to eup on all Flex fares (as opposed to M fares only for E35 on intl flights), but the new co-pay likely means that many E50 fliers will no longer be upgrading those flights.

On the other hand, those E50ers will be now be flush with credits for domestic eups, which may in turn squeeze out E35ers. And yeah - *G is really nice for all the little things (priority security lines!).

YUL2YEG

The MLL Club card you can select at 35K was a couple of months late last year, at least for me. Maybe they'll fix that this year but who knows. Also, in my experience, the UA and US lounges sometimes seem perplexed by the MLL Club card and have to bang away at their computers for 5 minutes before they give you the ok to enter.

Since I was going to be only 2000 AQM short of 50k I did a quick trip to make sure I passed it. Though given the coming upgrade co-pays and flex/tango price differentials I'm not sure it was worth the time/money. YMMV.

hydrogen

Link?

Clipper801

If your 2014 travel will involve little choice but AC, then it is worth it. Otherwise, I’d spend the $ that you’d spend on MR to get an Amex The Platinum card instead.

The Amex Plat comes with One World Sapphire status. If you are able to switch most of your travel to One World, it’s much better than having AC E50K when you have the Million Miler E50K, the E75K and SE all ahead of you and being looked down by AC staff as an insignificant/unimportant low tier member.

With the co-pay on International upgrade in 2014, there will likely be more upgrade requests on North American flights and E50K is at the bottom of the pile unless you’re buying Latitude.

CdnFlier

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I'd been looking at some last week on united.ca, yyz-hnl 0 night trips were coming up for around $700-800 and it'll get you about 10k miles.

I can look up specific dates for you if you can't find any.

hydrogen

Ahh you're looking at 0 night trips. Something I'm not particularly looking for. But good to know!

CdnFlier

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True enough but I saw similar fares for 1 night stays as well. It's just an easy/cheap option, there are probably many others! Just do it before December 18th or so, the fares all soar then.

canadiancow

0 nights to Hawaii? Not even I would do that

I'd make it one or two nights

Symmetre

Other than Super Elite, no Altitude level is worth a mileage run.

markandrew

In the past, I would have said go for it for e-upgrades. With it'l co-pays - absolutely no way.

I would agree on putting the cash - if you have it expendable - down on an Amex Plat, you cannot go wrong, for your $699 in addition to the oneworld status previously described, you are also getting 50/60k Aeroplan (or $500/$600 in travel credits) plus a further 2x$200 travel credits, full priority pass access for 2 including United lounges plus DL, US, AA lounges, domestic MLLs are covered as E35k.

As an alternative, if you are willing to put $700 or so down, use it to go to HNL but credit the flights to A3 and be 60% of the way to multi year *G status. Feeding into Altitude at this point is to reward AC for its disdain of its clients. Everything is being sucked away, summer and Xmas e-up promotions are over, late year extensions of eups taken away, and these are only the minor details. Hell, they have not even told us what we are getting in 2014, just given us a flavour of some of the things we are not getting.

DistressedAssetInvestor

My sentiments exactly. I would save the money and thus the disappointment of what E50 brings these days.

Clipper801

+1. Agreed.

markandrew

P & E35 also get e-ups in NA on Flex fares (at least in 2013, who knows what 2014 rules are (the consumers certainly do not). I agree that with many E50 and E75 likely expending all or most credits on NA flights, it is going to get really really tough to use them