Maintain FB Gold status with FB Amex?
 

Hi all,

Last year I made FB Gold after a lot of inter-continental trips (my first elite status on any airline!). I'm based on Paris but have a US address as well.

I carried over 2,500 level miles, but it will be difficult to make Gold again (60k miles) as I have a lot less work travel this year.

I got an offer for an FB Gold Amex with a bonus of 20k miles (prime), but it seems difficult to earn level miles using the Amex.

Is it worth going through the effort of trying to get the Amex and maintain FB Gold? If I changed my FB address to the US, I would only need 40k level miles (which seems more feasible). But then would I be able to simultaneously hold the Amex (on a French address) with a FB account on a US address?

Or should I just give up on FB and go back to my Delta Skymiles account, where it seems only 50k miles is needed for Gold?

Appreciate any insights on the relative merits of these choices - I'm relatively new to FF programs and am find them to be way too complicated!

I'm getting a bit lost as to what you are trying to do. In effect, very few purchases made through Amex will earn you level miles - in practice, mostly purchases of AF-KL tickets so chances are that if you buy them, you will fly them anyway, and if so, the Amex card becomes almost irrelevant you'll end up mostly earning from your flying rather than from your Amex purchases.

So your only real question is are you going to need to fly ST enough to keep FB gold. That said, frankly, if I was primarily US based which I assume you are, I'd choose to join DL rather than FB any day, even with the significant devaluation of the programme in recent years.

not necessarily. Indeed, if you buy "discounted" tickets which give you only 25% miles (or even less for the MiNi fares), believe me you earn more miles with the Amex than with the actual flight. Also, if OP intends to qualify by segments, the AF Amex gives you an automatic credit of 4 qualifying segments a year. Of course, I don't know what will happen to this segment qualification scheme (see our other discussion about MiNi fares), but at the moment that's it.
Overall, you don't have to rely on the sole AF Amex to achieve a status but it's a nice complementary tool.

Are you sure it is gold they offered you? they usually offer the 20k miles with the Platinium Amex.

I think the main advantage of the amex is the qualfying segments as mentionned by Goldorak. if is platinium amex, it'll give you 8 qualifying segments (i even got 12 QS last year, started the year with gold amex meaning 4 QS, then around October they offered me 50k miles primes if i move to platinium amex+8 QS which is did, the fee is quite subtensive though... 570€/year but it was worth it to get to gold FB status and get the 50k miles).

The level miles will not be that easy to get through amex unless you travel frequently with one of the 2, only AF/KL bought flights with your amex will give you level miles (1€=1.5 level miles with gold /1€=2 level miles with Platinium amex).

As for the address on your FB account, i don't think amex cares about the address on your FB account. my brother was based in HK but had a french account and he was able to get the amex AF KL card without any issue. Having the US address would mean less level miles to qualify and also that flight within France will count as QS.

at the end it will all depend on your travelling habits this year (frequence, class). if you plan to travel a lot but short distances, AF/KL could be interesting to get to the 30 QS needed for gold (using the QS offered with amex). if you are planning to go on long some haul flights, Delta would be easier i guess since they rely on distance flown to attribute Medallion qualifying miles.

P.S: i am new to these FFP programs as well, so this is based on my very short experience

This choice depends mainly on what kind of flights you plan on taking - inter-continental, domestic DL or European AF/KL flights? If you are likely to fly those 50k+ miles, presumably through AF/KL/DL-coded trans-Atlantic flights, Delta's programme might be a good option because of the free domestic (and certain international) upgrades, where you get a higher upgrade priority than FB Elites.
Having said that, if you might fly less than 50k miles and make more short-haul trips, FB might be the better option with only 30 segments needed for Gold. 30 segments only get you Silver with DL which does not come with lounge access.

One more thing to consider is whether you plan to use other Skyteam airlines for long haul - not all earn full MQMs. SU offer great deals on US-Europe and Europe-Asia if you don't mind connecting at SVO, but these flights only get you 50% MQMs with SkyMiles. Similar with CZ. Oh and if you pick SkyMiles don't forget to use your Paris address as you would need to qualify through MQDs with a US address.

I have used for many year the AMEX with a FB address outside of France there is absolutely no issues with that. In all case I would recommend you to switch to the US address. Not only the miles threshold is lower but also segments are easier to achieve as segments in France (except MiNiFare) count as a status flight whereas when you have a French address they don't. When you are based in Paris it doesn't make a big difference but when based outside of Paris all segments to CDG counts and it can easily make the difference at the end.

Be careful! 20k miles free will be miles prime not miles statuts. Your next buy to af/klm flight will be miles statuts and miles prime. For the amex it is neccessary having an account number in France. Call elite plus line for your answer but i think it's possible