Hello and Happy 2008 to everybody.I will be trying to get the coveted DIAMOND status. I do not really travel for business, just for fun. Is it really worth? I have 60000 miles and a LAX-HKG-BKK-LAX for the end of the month and a JFK-HKG-MNL-JFK for march. Any suggestion for the remaining 30000 miles to go in one single trip? Thank you

DM from GO is another 120,000 miles.

As you're SL now, and you say that you've got 60K. That should give you GO status. From there, you stauts miles zero's down and you need 120K to get DM. Unless you're already GO status, then yes, you are on the way to getting DM and you need another 60K miles from the 60K you already have. Not another 30K miles.

I am gold now and I have already qualified for GOLD next year(2009), meaning I have already 60000 miles plus 2 more booking adding up to 93000

When does your membership year end? What is your plan between your March trip and the end of your membership year?

You probably see that few on CX do mileage runs. I do not know why. A reason is probably that it is much harder compared with US airlines like UA and AA. Another reason is that there is no soft landing. Anyone can drop from Diamond to Green.

It really depends on you personally. If you like to take a RTW vacation, you may be able to add 27,000 miles. For me, spending several thousand dollars and 50 hours on flights do not worth it.

My membership year end September 2008. I may wait for the Deal of the Month and make 2 more trips spending around $2000. I was thinking to go to DPS or KUL and then to MNL, but a RTW looks more appealing

You have plenty of time. For RTW, you need to calculate accurately on the mileage because of the different airlines involved. BTW, if you are not flying RTW, please be aware that flights in July and August are very expensive, even though you can use seat guarantee with your Gold status.

Be aware that many Deal of the Month fares are not mileage eligible.

What do you perceive as the value of Diamond for your travel pattern (other than being OW Emerald -- but most Emerald status is a lot easier to earn)? I am curious whether I am missing something about DM, most of the benefits that I know about would not seem to apply to your travel basis.

Racking up miles for a FIRST CLASS ticket or the occasional gambling trip to Vegas. If nothing else changes, I am planning to visit Vietnam. Malaysia and Bali by September 2009, so I can enjoy those perks for a while. That's it, unless I win the lottery and starting living inside a 777

Aadvantage would be worth twice as much to you as Asiamiles, and EXP is easier to earn than DM. There is a big difference in earn/burn rates on AA vs CX, so you lose a lot on the things you want and gain benefits that you can't/don't use. DM seems like a poor choice based on this.

Do whatever you want, although I'm not sure you really need DM status. F lounge is great, but I mean most of us are in there on a weekly basis so hence the convenience. It's just a place to get work done quietly, take a shower and eat some food. You can get a guaranteed seat on J, which is also great, and 24 hours advance notice for Y. I use these all the time for business but wouldn't fathom doing it personally just because the cost would get prohibitive...full fare J tix can get expensive if you're paying yourself, and even full fare Y is pretty expensive. Finally, even as DM I rarely see op-up because of the routes I fly (CX730/840) and often do F anyway (or maybe I'm just terribly unlucky) and I think you do that same route too. You don't get any special bonus miles or other things...but I suppose there definitely is a price for DM. It's the price you're paying for all your tix to do mileage runs, and I guess if that cost equals the benefits - both real and perceived - then go for it.

Hard to say - If OP flies mostly on CX discounted economy, he will not get EQM/EQP on AA. It is easier for him to get to Emerald via MPC. On the other hand, if he flies mostly on AA, he can get to EXP a lot easier and get a lot of bonus miles too.

I thought the guaranteed seat does not have to equate to a full fare basis. I've used it in the past as Gold and was given the lowest fare class that was sold for that flight, at least to a M fare bucket.

I'm guessing if the lower fare class is available (meaning the flight is still not full). But thinking about it...isn't the "guaranteed" seat function slightly pointless if the flight is open anyway (with lower fare classes)? You could just book without needing to pull rank. Hence I'm assuming the truly "guaranteed" nature of the Y and J perk is that they come in the full-fare category. I don't know this for sure, just trying to tie common sense together. I've used the perk about a half dozen times, each time paying full fare Y for PEK runs and doing it to LAX and JFK in full-fare J. In each case the flights were oversold.

an example to illustrate: if a flight is showing Y6 B6 H4 K4 M4 L0 V0 S0 N0...anyone can get YBHKM fare class, but if L and V "fares" are available for the route you looking at, you can force CX to give you L and V availability.

but, again, it's only useful when "fares" are available for that fare class for the particular routing you're looking at, e.g. HKG-PEK-HKG might have only H, M "fares" available (i.e. you can only buy H, M class tickets, and not L/V etc), while TPE-HKG-PEK-HKG-TPE might have K, M, V "fares" available (these are all purely illustrative examples and not facts). in this case, if you're looking at HKG-PEK-HKG only, there's no use forcing L/V availability anyway because there's simple no tickets in L/V class for this routing.