One world Ruby AS or AA
 

I have many flights from PDX which has many AS flights but limited AA flights. But most of my travel is international. And their value of miles per flight changes depending upon a number o factors.

Is is better to earn MVP with 20k miles on AS or Gold with 30k LP on AA?

Can't tell if there is a big difference as about half our flights are on AS and the other half AA.

The requirement for achieving AAdvantage Gold status is going up to 40K miles. Not sure how that affects your calculations.

Of course, with AAdvantage, you can spend your way to higher status, through hotel stays, car rentals, the AAdvantage shopping portal, Simply Miles, etc.

AAdvantage status also gives you benefits on JetBlue, but if you never fly JetBlue, then that's irrelevant.

Better for what? Certain benefits (seating, boarding, baggage, etc.)? Earning ability? Award availability?

Without knowing what your particular priorities are, the thing the major difference that jumps out at me is that earning on AS is still done by BIS miles and fare class, whereas on AA it is based on $ spend. That might make one or the other program more 'profitable' for your international flights in particular, depending on where you normally fly and in what class. Also as noted above, AA has a greater number of non-flying ways to accumulate the points needed for ongoing elite status. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, again depending on your flying patterns. (In many instances on AA, it can seem like actual flying is the least profitable way to earn Loyalty Points, compared with other available options).

If you can make it to AA Platinum through partner spending/accrual, that would be my recommendation. You get most of the important priority/seating benefits on Alaska (https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...a-airlines.jsp), plus then for your international travel you have oneworld lounge access.

IMO a huge factor is whether you need to call the airline often and it so, which one. Priority phone lines only apply to the airline you have status with. It does not transfer across OW.

If you call frequently getting thru to agents faster can add a lot of value, much more than the small differences in redeeming miles.

Thank you for the questions.
I will be PPro next year and I have achieved that with credit card spend, hotels. And I would say 80 percent of the time we travel together and she gets my benefits. So there is only flying for her to earn status and I didn't know it would take 40LP to get to gold next year. So that is my answer. Thanks.

I was wondering how American recognizes One World Ruby status warned thru a partner airline. I earned it thru Alaska MVP status and am looking at booking an AA award ticket and the free baggage allowance would com ein handy. I cannot put my Alaska frequent flyer number on the reservation as it only lets me put in my American info.

Are you logging in to your AAdvantage account when booking the AA flight? If so, don't: book as a "guest," and then you can enter any oneworld program frequent-flyer number (and even a few non-oneworld frequent-flyer numbers) in the reservation record.

This works for a cash ticket, but wouldn’t work for an award ticket right? Could he call AA and ask them to switch to his AS number after booking?