What's better, keeping miles with Cathay or AAdvantage using AA
 

BTW this info is not for me. I'm helping out a friend who's flying to Asia on a regular basis on Cathay. They have been accumulating miles on their Marco Polo program for about a year and have ruby oneworld status.

Is there any benefit to using their AAdvantage account (no elite status) or just keeping with the Marco Polo program?

Thanks!

This is probably something I'm good with.
1) Where is your friend based out of?
2) CX flying pattern and purchasing patterns
3) AA flying pattern [if any]
4) What are they trying to get out of elite status, either AA or CX

5) If flying economy, what booking class is your friend flying on? Only Y, B and H are eligible for AA miles.

Unless they are AA codeshares, which allow lower fare classes to earn RDM with AA.

LAX

I have been asking me this every year, and thus let me help you a bit.

1) Do they care about free tickets from miles? If yes then AA is the way to go. AA are throwing away miles at you and their upgrade policy is so lax and easy to use. Also less miles to earn reward CX F and J flights. HOWEVER, please do note, as by others, that only Y, B, H classes are AA eligible.

2) Do they care about service? Then CX is the way to go. Of course there are people here that insists US-based airlines are better at it, so you can experiment if you want.

3) This is, personally, a big one for me. It is clear CX really takes care of their DM and GO members. I have many small incidents that were ignored with just ok service in the past, but now as GO I can really sense every request I made that CX staff will do all they can to make it happen. I really appreciate that.

There you have it. Which is more important: miles to spent, good service on flights, or really good personal service as CX's DM and GO members?

- CX miles expire three years after earned. AA miles do not expire as long as there is any activity in the account every 18 months.

- AA gives bonus miles for elite members, CX does not.

- CX members would have better chances of op-up than other Oneworld members of the same elite level on CX flights.

- It is easier to find seats on CX with AA miles than on CX miles, albeit that it costs AA miles more for short haul flights and the reverse for long haul flights.

- CX Ruby has lounge privileges on CX flights wheras Oneworld members of the same status level do not get access. Only Sapphire and above have lounge access. AA Ruby has no lounge access privilege even on AA unlike CX and no matter what your status is on any Oneworld airline, if you fly U.S. domestic and are in economy, you have no lounge access.

- Again, you earn miles on CX flights in AA program if you fly first class, business class, or Y/B/H economy booking classes. If you earn miles on CX, you earn miles all the way down to V in economy. However, you can still earn miles on AA if you book your CX flight using AA codeshare flight number.

- I think one can fasttrack to Gold (Ruby) or Platinum (Sapphire) on AA by doing the Gold or Platinum challenge. However, the challenge must be done on AA flights or Oneworld flights with AA codeshare flight numbers.

- Most Oneworld airlines allow their Ruby members to check in at business class counters. That applies to AA and CX as well. If based in U.S., getting elite status on AA might be more practical, given the likelihood of flying U.S. domestic flights.

- You can upgrade on CX flights using CX miles, and AA flights using AA miles. However you cannot upgrade on CX flights using AA miles and vice versa.

- Once you reach the next status level in CX you automatically start a new "year" at 0. With AA it is always the calendar year and you get the status for how many miles you receive in that year. So that means it takes longer to go from zilch to Gold on CX than on AA.

I credit all my eligible CX flights to AAdvantage but it is mostly paid J on TPAC routes. The redemption and earn rates on AA are significantly better and the miles don't expire. Anecdoctally my opup experiences as an AA EXP have been excellent with three RTs upgraded Y to J and two TPACs from J to F.

The "vice versa" is incorrect. Unless changed, you can upgrade AA flights using Asia Miles. In fact, Asia Miles can even be used to upgrade AA's I class to First (not doable with AAdvantage miles).

Don't forget that AA miles (from any source) count towards 1M and 2M lifetime elite status thresholds. Not sure if CX offers lifetime elite.

That changed last year, I class can now be upgraded with AA miles but it costs an extra co-pay depending on destination

As a member of both programs, I think the answer depends on how much you're going to fly in a year. It is difficult to get to DM on CX starting from scratch, where as it is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to get ExecPlat or OW Emerald on AA.

For example (just using BIS miles for simplification), assuming you just renewed CX/SL, it will take you 60K to get to GO and then another 120K to get to DM. So 180K in all.

On AA, you need 100K miles and you're ExecPlat.

Earn and Burn is also much more favorable on AA.

My strategy would be:

-If you think you can make CX Gold, go for CX if you care about op-ups; go for AA if you care about earning and redeeming miles.

-If you think you can make CX Diamond, go for CX if you care about op-ups, but think hard about splitting miles to get AA Execplat and CX Gold; otherwise, if it's earning and redeeming miles, skip CX and go for AA.

-If you can only pull SL, then put everything onto AA if you can make AA Platinum, otherwise keep in CX.

All this assumes you're flying the right fare classes to earn AA miles.