thephirm

As someone based in SFO who generally doesn't fly very much (maybe 15K - 20K miles a year, all leisure) I haven't previously given much thought to BAEC. That changed recently when I learned that work would require me to travel from SFO to TLV 3-4 times a year for the foreseeable future.

For various reasons flying BA looks like the best option. My company will pay for business class, so I should be able to earn status fairly quickly. However I don't know that I'll get that much benefit out of elite status on a non-domestic airline.

What do you think? Is BAEC status valuable for someone based in the US? It's not like I get the chance to fly BA that often. I generally fly AA domestically, would I be better off using the BA flights to earn AA status and miles? Or would it be better to have OW Emerald status for domestic flights?

Thanks very much for your help.

hyperspace

I am based in LA and fly to London at least once or twice a year round trip (mostly wt+ paying on my own and hoping for airport or proactive upgrades or UuA). I do find value in the BAEC although I confess I've never been part of any American FF program to be able to make a comparison.

Mainly I enjoy BAEC for the possibility of upgrading the LH from lax to lhr, and the generous availability of reward flighst domestically both in Europe and in US.

This is combined to the chase credit card.

For example, I usually buy a return ticket to lhr in wt+, use avios or cash to upgrade (when possible) then book reward flights to fly from London to many destination in Europe, or at other times, redeeming avios here in U.S. On AA flights.

Mwenenzi

A common question. Depends on your objectives from a ffp
Several BA vs AA threads linked here
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

AZ Travels the World

I think crediting to AA and earning your OW Emerald status there will provide you overall with greater benefits -- specifically system-wide upgrades on AA/US flights whenever you fly domestically. You won't get that with BA OW status.

Internationally, on these work flights you're already flying business class so you get all those perks and once you reach Emerald status, that just gets better.

US flies to TLV non-stop from PHL and it's now arguably a better business class hard product than BA's. More personal space. The food isn't any worse. You're going to have to change planes somewhere, and PHL is easier to navigate than LHR.

But what's great is that you could still fly the BA SFO non-stop to LHR whenever you wanted. Any combination of AA/US or BA over the Atlantic earns you the same credit into an AA account, but the AA status gets you more when you do fly in the US.

BA Executive Club is making it less attractive all the time to be a US-based member. If you have any future plans to use any of your miles for international flights, this is definitely the case, with large increases in mileage requirements for such flights occurring again next month. Other than cheaper economy flights within the US using BAEC Avios (at least for the time being), given your situation I don't see any upside to aligning your loyalty with BA.

fiddlerkrt

To the OP, will you travel enough miles to earn Exec Plat on AA? If so, I agree that it would be much more valuable to use Aadvantage rather than BA for the system-wide upgrades.

I am also an LA-based traveler doing around 35K a year on WT+ and domestic F tickets. On AA, I only qualify for gold which is better than nothing but a huge step down from BA Silver which is fairly easy for me to attain since BA rewards premium travel while AA rewards equivalent miles (although I'd be very surprised if this doesn't change soon). I get MCE seats for free and lounge access on domestic flights- two very important perks for me personally.

corporate-wage-slave

If lounge access is useful, and the SFO Admirals is one of the better ones, then perhaps credit to just get BA Silver, then credit purely to AA. The BA Avios can be used for non connecting hops within the USA very usefully (e.g. SFO to LAX, SFO to DFW), the AA Miles can be used for anything else.

handspring088

In short, it is used to be a close call as to whether to credit to BA or AA.

BA gets you the "perk" of Admirals Club access in the U.S.; AA has the SWUs.

But, with the recent news of Avios devaluation from BA (already took a hit in the recent past), AA is a much better value. You can get OW Emerald status for international lounge access, with domestic upgrades and better mileage spending. Stick with AA, I think.

SadKingBilly

Note that if you play your cards right, you can earn BAEC Gold in just two SFO-TLV RT flights in J. One of them will have to use a "creative" routing, involving domestic segments over 2000 miles in First on a two-class AA/US flight, for 210 TPs per segment (assuming this earning rate will not change at the end of April, there is much speculation about that). Example routing would be something like SFO-BOS-LHR-TLV and back. If you do this at the very beginning of your TP collection year, you will enjoy this status for 2 years, and can credit all the other flights to a different program.

thephirm

Thanks for the responses.

I doubt I'll be able to make Exec Plat on AA, probably just Plat. And since the bulk of my domestic travel is with my family I probably wouldn't get that many chances to use SWUs anyway.

Ultimately it looks like I'm choosing between AA Plat and BA Gold.

thephirm

That's a great idea! Unfortunately my company won't pay for domestic First, but I may be able to pay for the difference out of pocket. I'll look into it. Thanks.

One more quick question. Does anyone know how difficult it is to redeem Avios for Alaska Airlines seats from the West Coast to Hawaii?

SadKingBilly

Your longhaul J ticket will put you in F on domestic two-class flights for free. Note that to optimize TPs earned you should book them as AA/US flight numbers, not BA codeshare - the business booking class will be used for the latter, so even though you will be seated in First cabin, you'll earn fewer TPs/Avios.

dylanks

Given that you'll prinarily be flying in paid J, you'll earn status faster with BAEC. It's the same reason I credit to BA over AA. The main benefit is the lounge access while flying in the US (which AA does not give out except when flying internationally or in transcon F or with paid membership), as well as much shorter wait times should you need to contact BA by phone. You give up the domestic upgrades that are increasingly less common on AA, but it sounds like those wouldn't benefit you much anyway. So I'd recommend BAEC based on your criteria, even with the recent devaluation.

handspring088

I'd agree with this, especially since you think that you'd only make AA Plat. That changes my view from the post above.

lwildernorva

Same reason I credit to BA. Two Js or one J and two WT+s anywhere other than London has gotten me Silver status the last several years--with entry to AA's lounges even on domestic flights. In the OP's case, three roundtrips SFO-LHR-TLV would get him Gold status.

hyperspace

I've never did it personally but just tried a couple of dummy reward searches LAX-HNL and they returned generous availability in Economy. I tried random dates in April and August. Not sure it's the norm though for the whole year.

SFO-HNL didn't show availability on the same dates, but once, with a connection in LAX. You would probably better off booking separate reward flights between SFO-LAX and LAX-HNL. My experience is that is usually much easier to book separate reward legs vs. trying to combine them in one trip. Plus you get the flexibility of being able to change or cancel single flights, without affecting the entire itinerary.