Ethicist

I have in excess of 120K miles on CO and, since I am lumped in with everone else who has earned or bought their way to 75K Plat, am tired of sitting in back.

I will be flying weekly to NE Texas for the next 5 months and considering switching to AA and trying for status match. My question: Is it worth it?

videomaker

You won't get a status match from AA at that level of flying.

Here's the information on challenges from the FAQ. That may help you decide whether it's worth it.

Does AA offer status matches or Challenges?

rjw242

Flying from where to NE Texas? If it's another AA hub (ORD or MIA), your chances for upgrades as a Plat might be just as slim.

ty97

If the OP is flying to NE Texas, odds are he/she will be connecting at DFW to Eagle planes to (Tyler? Longview?), but the question of 'where from' is a pertinent one.

If the OP has flown 120K this year, then he/she would make EXP, which would give unlimited upgrades (based on availability, of course) on the flight to DFW (assuming it's not Eagle also...again, the where from question is important).

It's my understanding that AA F has more seats than CO F, so that would help updgrade chances, if OP earns AA EXP.

ashill

OP seems to only be doing this trip for another 5 months, which won't be enough to make EXP (or, at least, won't be enough to enjoy the benefits of EXP for much of that time). Given that, OP, note that you will probably be AA Platinum (the equivalent of CO Gold) for most of your travel, assuming you do a challenge (see link above). As an AA Plat, you will have to use 500 mile stickers to upgrade yourself; see the FAQs in this forum for information about that. (The sticker system has plusses (availability of upgrades) and minuses (cost if you want to upgrade more than 20% of your flight mileage).)

If your frequent travel to NE Texas really is limited to a 5 month job, I probably wouldn't switch to AA just for that travel with the information you've given. If you plan to stick with AA afterwards, that may well be a different story, but it's very hard to evaluate with the information we have about your travel patterns.

RChavez

Recently my flying habits have me shifting some of my travel to *A. I will say, nothing really compares to EXP on AA.

I haven't had the opportunity to fly CO yet, but I must say one of the things I do miss is with oneworld, you get your elite bonus miles on every partner, not just a select few like CO/UA.

Also the F lounges are definitely missed when flying on *A carriers.

The redeeming thing about *A are the number of partners for award opportunities. This is definitely one of the sore spots about OW is its lack of diversity with partners.

Also, I've found that my experience with redemption on AA has been very good. Once I got my status matched to Platinum on CO last month, I did a few experimental searches for premium awards (which I'm supposed to have expanded availability on CO), and it was exactly what I remembered. Not a stitch on CO metal.

All in all, I'm going to focus my efforts in 2011 to keep EXP on AA, and fly just enough to maintain *G on a *A carrier. Whether that remains CO or possibly might switch to AC after 2011 remains to be seen. But I would say AA at the top tier is a significantly better program than CO/UA.

Ethicist

The origination is EWR and travel will continue at the current rate for the foreseeable future. It is just that in the next 5 months the destination is NE Tx. After that it will be another part of the country.

JohnFortWorth

I've always had good luck upgrading on AA out of EWR, even when I was PLT, but that may just be the luck of the draw. I like the Admiral's Club there, and it never seems as crowded as the President's Club. Five years ago I would have said without hesitation that CO was much better than AA. Today, I prefer AA, though there's not that much difference in my opinion. I think AAdvantage is a better program than OnePass.

ijgordon

Not really - you don't earn elite bonus miles on JAL or Malev, and until recently you didn't earn them on BA. But still better than CO/*A - I think it's only AC, LH, UA and US that participate, at least in CO OnePass.

However, trade-off is a lot more mileage-earning penalties within the OW alliance. At least with CO on *A, there are only a select few fare classes on a handful of partners that don't earn 100% RDM/EQM. I just noticed that JL "I" fares only earn 55% base miles/EQMs (+ 25% bonus miles), and while EQPs are still 1.5x, the 55% means you're only earning 82.5% effective EQPs per mile flown.

I think the difference is narrower than many believe, at least if you're comparing a 100K CO flier to an AA EXP. Award availability on CO metal isn't much an issue because there are so many partners. Even domestically, you have UA and US; on AA it's either AA or AS, and AS is there just to fill in AA's poor West coast route network. CO 100Ks get 4 SWUs that are not fare-class restricted. Not as good as 8, but probably better than the restricted ones you get on UA. Upgrades outside of NY-LAX/SFO/SNA should be pretty close to AA EXP. CO advance exit row assignment is limited to 50k+ fliers, so it's generally easier to get the exit row on CO than AA, where 25k Golds can book them in advance and I think anyone can get them at OLCI (on CO they charge non-elites, and it's not cheap, so they're still usually always available). CO Plats have free confirmed flight changes, and it's a pretty flexible program - you can change your flight as early as 24 hours prior to your current booking. Also no co-pays on domestic mileage upgrades like there is on AA. Companion upgrades probably a wash - easier to get on AA (can clear at EXP window vs. only at airport on CO) but not free on AA.

So the real AAdvantages of EXP over CO 100k Plat are the international F lounges, the additional 4 SWUs and probably a slightly better upgrade success rate. Perhaps the EXP desk, but I find generally great agents on the CO elite desk too.

These AAdvantages are mitigated by better partner award availability, fewer partner mileage-earning penalties, confirmed flight change and better exit row availability on CO. Of course who knows what will change with the eventual merger of OnePass and MileagePlus, but for now the comparison is better than people think.

bts09

I think also worthy of note is the difference in benefits you can extend to travel companions. I say this because I am and have been an EXP the last two years and am also a CO PLAT this year. I fly a lot with my wife and rarely alone, and have noticed that CO's companion upgrades are far less generous than AA's--with AA you can extend your status to a companion pre-gate, ie, as far out as your own upgrade might clear. With CO, it's 2 hours before flight only. Period. So, if you're traveling a lot with non-status people with whom you would like to be sitting (up front), then AA offers that as a superior benefit. And just for reference, I have yet to have a companion upgrade clear on CO--just too many silvers in the CO system...