Emmonssw

I'm a relatively new FF, but I was able to achieve Southwest A List Preferred in the first half of the year. However, as part of a new project, I'll be flying RT weekly on American from October thru April. The problem is, that I'll only collect 630 miles RT at entry level, and as I understand it, my status accrual will reset on Jan 1st. This will leave me short of achieving any status through the entire project.

AA has offered me a chance to reach gold status for $120 if I hit 5k miles in 3 months, and $200 for platinum if I hit 10k in 3 months. I should be able to hit the gold, but was wondering if y'all thought it was worth the $120 to do so (as it will be out of pocket) I'm not sure that even with gold status thru most of the project if I'll receive enough points to get anywhere (I think a total of ~30k including gold perks), and its not a sure thing that I'll fly AA anymore following this project, as my base airport is not an AA hub, but simply has a direct to my current project.

Alternatively, I looked through some of the credit card offers, but didn't notice anything that gave me immediate status. Did I miss something? For those who fly AA frequently, do you have any advice on what I should do? And am I correct that 30k won't exactly get me anything other than single RT domestic?

bdemaria

There must be a miscalculation in the math here: if you are flying AA weekly starting in October, then why would you only earn 630 miles?

You should double check the details of the challenge: usually they are based on points, not miles. Points are calculated using combination of miles flown and fare, higher fares earn more points. Miles are simply the distance flown.

No cc offers immediate AA status.

The award options are detailed on this chart

footballfanatic

no 500-mile minimum is my guess. that sucks...OP might be able to make gold based on # of segments in this case. not sure how many RT flights they have planned.

bdemaria

deleted

MADPhil

As long as you fly at least 8 round trips at 630 BIS miles per trip and buy a fare that gets you 1 EQM per BIS mile you will have the 5,000 EQMs for Gold. You will then get 1,000 BIS miles per round trip to get you started on next year.

SFOPhD

I think OP meant 630 miles each round trip.

bdemaria

a much more reasonable explanation . . . I completely read over the "rt" notation, only the 630 miles.

JNB280

What AA metal flight earns less than one EQM?

SFOPhD

MADPhil means EQP. As bdemaria correctly points out, many challenges are based on EQP instead of EQM. MADPhil was just reminding the OP to book fares that give 1 EQP per mile flown if this were an EQP-based challenge.

LINDEGR

What fare will you be buying- fully Y or B? Or discounted coach?

MADPhil

Thanks for the correction. I undermined the whole point of my post by not paying attention to what I was typing!

djibouti

If flying RT weekly for a 3 month period, that's 13 roundtrips. 670 at cheapo fares is 335 EQP per roundtrip. If you book one on a discount F fare (even if out of pocket), that would be:

335*12 + 670*1.5 = 5025 EQP

As long as you can do this before 12/31 you'd have Gold.

An alternative, and possibly cheaper possibility, is to throw in one segment run of 4 segments. Then you have 30 segments, qualify on that alone, don't have to pay for the challenge, and save the ability to use a platinum challenge later on.

That way, in 2014 if you fly 13 roundtrips at 500 EQM/250 EQP each segment, you'd have 6500 EQP from that alone. Throw in a mid-fare transcon or discount F midcon and you have enough for a Platinum challenge. The problem is then it would only be good through February 2015. It would be better if you were flying in July-September so that you could make it last through 2016 but that sounds out of your control.

bdemaria

But this assumes F is an option for OP. Given the short route, the flights may well be on AE, and thus F may not exist.

djibouti

Maybe yes, maybe no. SFO-LAX (674 R/T miles) is operated by 738s. DFW-AUS (only 380 miles R/T) is operated by M80s. Lots of short routes ex-DFW now operated by A319s. So, we don't know, but it's an option if F is available so it was worth mentioning.

Either way, I'd personally pay for a quick segment run out of pocket rather than pay for discount F out of pocket on an otherwise reimbursed trip.

reeg2

If I was OP, I'd simply get the AA Citi credit card which extends most of the functional benefits of Gold status and qualify the old fashioned way. I just can't see paying any money out of pocket for status, when you could use that money for other things.