Fly cx over AA?
 

Newbie here,

I have an upcoming trip and want to earn miles, but afraid my CX flights won't earn any AA miles. I can't pony up for premium economy or business, and the economy fare bucket isn't Y. I could still fly Cathay from LAX to HKG on the way over (as I've never flown them and have heard great things for Economy), and do AA or even United coming back. I have no status on anything, but would like to at least bank some miles flying all that way. Any suggestion would be great!

Within Oneworld it is indeed difficult to earn miles on partner flights if you only buy cheap tickets.

If you want AA miles and do not have any status at all, why don't you fly with AA (which does offer LAX-HKG)? Was the schedule inconvenient?

Would you mind one-stop flight? Like flying JAL

If you want AA miles, you should fly on AA.

And if you want a better experience fly JL or CX.

If you end up on a 10x 77W, AA is the same as CX, and has much better food. And, JL has the NRT stop, which makes it a nonstarter for me.

While I 100% disagree AA has better food, you can fly AA - ticketed CX - operated flight, whose price sometimes is higher due to AA codeshare.

LAX-HKG fares are generally pretty cheap (routinely ~$400 RT), so your earnings on an AA coded flight are going to be fairly minimal. Example: a $700 AA ticket on LAX-HKG (of which $90 is taxes) will only earn around 3k miles. You really can't do much of anything with that, so unless you plan to continue to fly oneworld on a somewhat regular basis I wouldn't overthink your decision here.

I'd suggest flying the carrier with the best balance of cost, timing and inflight product.

Also, AA food in J and F is pretty dire (can't speak to long haul food offerings in Y on either carrier). CX definitely has a clear competitive advantage on this score. Cabin service on CX is also worlds more consistent than AA. AA can be fine, but it's very hit or miss (more miss than hit, in my experience).

1. I want to clarify my boast about AA's food. While I do think it is better than CX in Y and J (CX has a solid edge in F though), the bar is pretty low, so I would not make this a deciding factor
2. I certainly agree that 4 flights is better than 1, but when the AA flight goes tits up, they will usually endorse you to CX
3. IIRC, getting AA miles on CX flights requires an H fare or higher; this is expensive
4. I think the NRT connection idea is dumb on multiple levels
-you get 20 more miles, BUT the JL flight will probably only accrue at 70%, which is obviously a net loss v the AA nonstop
-as much as I dislike AA's 10-abreast 77Ws, the planes JL flies NRT-HKG are worse

Just to add my latest experience recently in Y on CX [I've not flown CX in Y for the last 4 years], albeit not between US and HKG, I found that the standard of service on CX in Y to have gone down dramatically (based on 2 long-haul flights)
- Cabin Attendants are rather surly and arrogant
- food quality if ok - though seem to be much smaller
- cabin attendants seem to 'dissapear' after the meal service - did not notice any offerings of water/liquid throughout the flight. Even going back to the gallery to get water/snack - attendants were quite surly (like even you going back there to get your own items, it was a burden to them)

If i had a choice between the 3 considered airlines here I would go for
1) JL - even with the stop in at NRT (if the transfer time is about 2-3 hours) - to enjoy some Japanese shopping/food
2) AA - at least service (although not the best) - but still more or less consistent and you can mentally be prepared for it
3) CX

Cheers!

I really never heard my EXP/CK friends praising AA's services are consistent; hit or miss with mostly miss is what I would expect.

I think CX has introduced wifi to many aircraft. My Feb. HKG-YVR-JFK//IAD-HKG and Mar. HKG-LAX-HKG all had wifi. CX also bans VOIP.