BA Gold vs. AA Executive Platinum
 

I have been an AA Executive Platinum for as long as I can remember, but my circumstances have changed so need advice as to whether it's worth beginning to credit my miles to BA.

I am a US citizen, but currently am based in Abu Dhabi. I've gone from being a 125,000-mile-per-year flyer to a 250,000-mile per year flyer, and whereas in the past I had a lot of US domestic travel on AA, now the vast majority of my travel (about 10x per year) is on BA to the US via LHR on I-inventory Club World fares.

With my AA Executive Platinum status, I do of course get unlimited free Y-to-J domestic upgrades when traveling on AA in the US, but as noted, my US domestic travel is down significantly. I also get more AA VIP upgrades than I can use, although I am on occasion able to upgrade from J to F on AA when connecting through LHR. (Whereas most of my travel is AUH-BA-LHR-BA-BOS, I will sometimes connect on AA to DFW, JFK or MIA and upgrade to F.) With BA Gold, I know I would get AA lounge access when traveling domestically in the US, which I now get through my AA credit card.

To throw a wrench into the works, I may start flying more to the US west coast, and although the total travel time is longer, will consider flying CX from DXB through HKG for a change of scenery, and because I so much prefer CX to BA.

In terms of miles/avios usage, I generally use them to fly family and friends to visit me in Abu Dhabi, London or Europe, avoiding BA whenever possible to avoid the BA surcharges.

So with all of this, is there any reason for me to consider qualifying for BA Gold rather than AA Executive Platinum. If I can qualify for both, should I consider doing that?

I'm just going to quietly sit back and watch this thread with interest. I'm also AUH based. Just BA (And EY) carded.

interesting option going through to the west coast on CX. Careful with that flight out of DXB. I have been sitting in my Careem sweating it out in SZ Road traffic more than once.

From the description of 10x AUH-LHR-(USA)-LHR-AUH per year, that alone earns 560 TPs per trip or 5600 in a year, not looking at any of your other flying patterns on top of that. Quite easily GGL/CCR level, which I think is easily more useful for the reasons above than AA's "normal" EXP. Especially if a lot of your flights are on BA as opposed to AA now. If there's any amount of split between AA and BA travel, you may well find it possible to have BA GGL with BA and for the BA flights, but credit AA flights to AA to maintain sufficient status there and still be able to use your VIP upgrades for J->F when flying AA.

When it comes to redemption value in terms of miles/avios required for redemptions, I still usually find AAdvantage miles slightly more valuable than BA Avios, but in the premium cabins I usually find that BA rewards a bit more Avios (on their own BA flights) than AA would for the same BA flights. Some of AA's shorter term premium promotions can switch that around, though, so it's not at all ironclad. AFAIK AAdvantage only lets you book "Anytime" rewards for much inflated levels (regardless of status) whereas BA lets its GGL members use occasional "Jokers" to book revenue seats at normal redemption levels.

Hopefully there are others who will be able to weigh in and give a better sense of what the GGL/CCR attention from BA really means. I've never scraped past much more than 2500 TPs in a year, and as recent travel has declined, my awareness at all levels has grown slightly dated.

Ironically BAEC may have served you better when you were living in the USA due to access to the AA lounges on your domestic sectors.

I would startby looking at earning and redemption rates for trips that you take/redeem on and also consider what can be very high co-payments in carrier surcharges that BA will apply on redemptions

If you switch to the BA scheme - no longer a reason to avoid BA for redemptions - BA will happily apply surcharges on other airlines

OP - I would say there is no point staying with AA in your situation.

FWIW - you have earned the maximum MM benefits you can have with AA. So IIRC, the only thing you lose is the award multipler, free upgrades and eVIPs. I don't see how you can benefit more from AA rather than on BA.

But again - I would calculate the RDM earning difference before making the switch and see if it is worth it.

Blumie, I see you have already worked your way through AA's Million Miler program so does lifetime Emerald status appeal to you? The EC's Lifetime Gold might be within your reach, at 35k tier points

Switching to BA will give GGL and all its benefits, tonnes more Avios than AA miles on the same flights so appears to be an obvious choice. However, as noted, redemptions on BA will almost always involve a large (for me!) cash outlay. I suspect the amount of cash involved might not be such a burden, but you've already shown a dislike to the BA-applied surcharges on AA redemptions.

Ultimately, we play the frequent flyer game for two reasons: better treatment/ benefits when we fly, and on this count, BA appears to be the general winner, and secondly for redeeming points/ miles. I still think AA is the winner here. Your flying will earn enough AA miles to redeem decent amount of comfortable flights every year.

If you do decide to stick to AA, diversifying with Star Alliance may not be a bad idea: always good to have more than one form of currency, but getting to where you want to go on anything except UA may not be so straightforward.

tb

I agree with the others that if you really are doing that much travel, at least for the first year to get the initial qualification done, then you should be comparing AA EXP vs BA GGL/CCR. In that case you should definitely be switching to BA if you can keep up even the 3000 TPs per year to keep normal GGL.

Do you redeem miles for flights a lot, especially economy flights (not necessarily for yourself)?

If so, AA miles are much more useful than Avios in my opinion. You can avoid hefty surcharges more easily and there is better availability (especially if you're willing to use AAnytime awards).

AA treats EP quite a bit better than BA treats Gold. From what people say, BA treats GGL as well or slightly better than AA EP. Frankly I'd stick to AA EP rather than just BA Gold, but GGL might sway the balance.

CX, in my experience, treats EP and Gold about the same (they don't know about GGL).

You could, I expect, easily maintain both AA EP and BA Gold if you want, gaining a reasonable supply of both AAdvantage miles and Avios, the AA SWUs and the BA expanded Gold redemption inventory. You'd have to commit to BA for GGL.

You're talking what, a 60 second difference? You'll survive, I promise