Lowest level with two airlines versus mid-level with one?
 

Stuck in a weird situation where I'm typically AA Platinum, but picked up some clients in a city pair that AA doesn't fly (HLN/MSO), which are best served by Delta. My primary travel is from PHX to the San Francisco Bay Area, which has little to no Delta representation. I've now got a choice:

1. Stick with AA and fly as close as I can to HLN/MSO (probably Seattle) and then change to another carrier with no status, or
2. Split my travel between AA (SF Bay) and DL (Montana)

I like the fact that I get Delta Sky Club access with AA Plat, but wouldn't fly enough DL to get Gold with them, and Silver doesn't appear to get you anything at all, not even priority boarding. I haven't had the best luck with upgrades as AA Plat, but I know I can always get Main Cabin Extra, which I'm not even guaranteed with Delta Silver.

Mostly just looking for opinions to reinforce a decision. Would you rather have mid-level status on one carrier (AA or DL), or low level status on both? Benefits/downsides I may not be considering?

Status match to DL as a solution for the short run?

Generally speaking, though, I think I prefer mid-tier status over entry-level status twice.

The entry-level statuses generally don't provide much. The sweet spot status in a program is often (but not always) the lowest status level providing *G/Sapphire/Elite+. Usually, dimishing returns set in beyond that.

I’m confused about the “DL has no SFO representation” comment.

DL and AA have roughly the same market share at SFO, DL is bigger at SJC (and just made it a focus city), and both are basically non-existent at OAK

Sorry, it would have been more helpful to include my home base of PHX, so I edited the post to clarify. PHX has no DL nonstop to the three Bay cities, requiring a layover in LAX, SLC, or SEA, whereas AA goes nonstop from PHX to all three airports.

I did status match DL to AA while I decide what to do. If there was a PHX-SJC direct it'd be a no-brainer for me to switch to DL completely, but I can't turn an hour and a half flight into six hours of travel, so it's either commit fully to AA (Platinum) or split to AA Gold and DL Silver it seems.

Ah okay that makes a lot more sense. In that case, I would likely just go all in on AA for Platinum. The added value of additional status levels exceeds having low tier in a couple of airlines IMO -- you can replicate DL Silver with the CC apart from exit row seats.

Can you still earn AA miles on AS flights? I know they have been slowly drifting apart but it looks like AS flies into MSN/HLN so if you can still credit those AS flights back to AA, that could be a nice combo to solve the problem.

You could also go for mid-tier with United if flying into SFO is an option since it looks like UA services both MSN and HLN via DEN plus you get direct service to SFO. Though I haven't dug into the details of their new program so don't fully know how the requirements translate.

More than drifting apart.
AS forum

• https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ch-2020-a.html
  
• https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ry-2018-a.html

AA forum

• https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...an-2018-a.html

I need to look more into this. I don't think I've ever really looked into United as a viable option.