Adelphos

So far this year, I have about 10,000 MQM miles on Delta and the same amount of EQM on American. I’m based in NYC, fly out of JFK and LGA. I’ll probably have 30,000 or so miles to fly for the rest of the year, barring an unexpected international trip. I generally book business travel via a corporate portal and get access to solid pricing on both airlines. I also buy business class when flying over four hours, so a significant portion of my MQM are due to paid mileage bonuses on transcons.

My question is how should I distribute my remaining flights? Should I try to get lowest status on both AA and Delta and choose for next year? Here are my considerations:

Upgrades: Due to AA’s weaker positioning here, I get upgraded as a Gold (their FO) fairly frequently. I imagine Delta upgrades out of LGA or JFK aren’t really happening until you reach Platinum.

Schedule: DL’s schedule out of NYC is vastly superior

Lounges - Flagship lounges at JFK and LAX beat Delta’s offerings

Planes - AA Transcon planes are great, otherwise they are similar

Service - Delta is better

Status “Boosts” - American regularly gives out corporate boosts and challenges to lower level elites that let them get higher status for months. Does Delta do something similar?

Overall, it seems like American Gold out of NYC is more valuable than FO despite some of the advantages Delta has an airline, at least for my purposes. That said, I probably will try to get both to keep my options open for 2019. Thoughts?

hoshattack

If you're getting paid business on the longer segments anyway, I wouldn't worry about the upgrades too much since it won't be great either way. That said, if you enjoy a drink in the air one great thing about Delta's C+ that AA's MCE and UA's E+ don't offer is the complimentary booze.

Personally I'd go with DL just for schedule. In addition to not wasting your time, it also will help for IRROPs, as will having some modicum of status.

tphuang

If you are flying within perimeter stuff at all out of NYC, then having those easy upgrades on AA to non-hub airports is pretty nice. I almost never miss on those upgrades. Far more value than having a free drink.

ijgordon

tphuang

I wasn't AA gold obviously, but on those sub 500 mile flights, I definitely saw plenty of Gold getting upgraded and there were still empty seats in FC.

If it's just legroom he is after, then JetBlue wins every time.

DA201

If you are most concerned about upgrades, AA is the right option because there are just so many people with high status on DL in NYC. If schedule is more important, then DL will win. Something else to possibly consider is ease of booking award flights. From my experience, DL usually has cheaper award flights and more nonstop availability.

Adelphos

It sounds like the best option is to gain status on AA (Platinum at least if possible, but Gold at a minimum) but to be open to flying Delta, especially when I can simply buy into F or MCE. Really makes sense to fly both airlines until my flying naturally hits 75,000 miles or more, when it really makes sense to get top tier status on an airline

tphuang

I think you can get decent amount of upgrades to non-hub airports with a platinum status on AA. And since you are not going for status on DL, why restrict yourself to them on cases where AA doesn't make sense? You live in NYC. There are plenty of alternatives that may offer better value. I don't even fly UA, yet I'm moving a lot of my chase reward miles there so I can get great redemption internationally and not be restricted to flying out of EWR.

Adelphos

ijgordon

I think one underrated benefit of having status that you really can’t buy your way into is priority telephone assistance, particularly in big weather/IRROPs (when the app/website is useless IME). Is it worth flying an extra 5k EQMs at the end of the year? Well, combined with free exit rows *maybe*, if you’ll be flying DL a decent amount the following year.

ijgordon

tphuang

+free high speed wifi and live satellite TV. And unless you have credit card, how do you get access to the lounges traveling in y? Even with EXP, I never got into Admiral Club on domestic non-transcon flights. I've had to rely on pp to get into any lounge.

it might well be. But also think that with AA platinum, you can get status matched on any of the other airlines the year after. So doing an extra return trip to SFO might not be worth it if you are only missing out on the other airline's status for half of the year.

Also curious where are your flying to where DL has better schedule? this is a serious question. AA has similar or better schedule to LHR/ORD/BOS/DCA/LAX/MIA. Out of the major business markets out of NYC, the only ones where DL has better schedule to is SFO unless you could ATL/DTW as major market.

Adelphos

So far this year, i've faced limited AA schedules to MSP, MCO, DEN, and SEA. All on business trips. Obviously some of these are hubs of other airlines, but these markets are why I've amassed DL points.

ijgordon

Yes - credit card, membership, whatever. While you could use various Amex/PP lounges when flying B6, I think there are just fewer options vs. DL/AA. And B6's move at LGA takes away the Centurion lounge as an option at one of the home bases (though I guess one could argue the MAT is better in other ways). Free wifi is nice for personal trips, but for business work will pay anyway.

I don't know why you would just limit it to major business markets. Even if you did, why exclude, say, Europe? FRA, ZRH, AMS for a few.
And going more broadly, I'm sure you're able to find the number of markets DL serves nonstop from NYC -- I imagine it's quite a bit larger than what AA does. Even 1x daily n/s is a better schedule than 0x. But some other domestic routes that might be important where DL > AA would include IAH, LAS, SLC, SAN, PDX, AUS, PBI/FLL, TPA, MCI. (And DL offers multiple frequencies on I think all of these)

Ugh, I hate that I'm defending DL.

3Cforme

Do you really need a schedule comparison how DL is better out of JFK and LGA?