I've just come to the revelation that i need to do all my flying on one carrier. Now i'm wrestling with which one! I'm based in santa barbara and go to paris a lot. I'm interested in upgrades, free tickets, and double qualifying miles promos. Any advice or
solutions for me?

You may know this, but Delta and Air France are both in the same alliance. Continental and United are both in the same alliance. American is in the third alliance. So while I am a newbie, my reading says that you can use miles from one carrier in an alliance on another carrier. I am doing this in April on a trip to Europe.

Not sure if that helps, but thought it might.

Jim

To get some good advice, it would help if you provided some more info: About how many times a year do you go to Paris? About how many trips per year do you take to other destinations, and what are they? Do you fly economy or business class? And would you prefer to use the miles you build up for upgrades or to cash in for other trips?

Agreed to Thunderroad,...bE specific!...

4-5 times to paris annually.
4-5 times various domestic destinations
maybe once every other year to south america.
Want to go to africa in the next few years.
Probably a trip to asia next few years.
Willing to do a mileage run if double qm's.
Thanks!

By the way, i've always flown coach but don't want to anymore.

Yeah, you and me both. Sounds like Skyteam - Delta/AF is your best bet given your travel habits. Other than AF and Air Tahiti Nui - I don't think any other carrier does LAX-CDG nonstop.

While Delta and their SkyTeam partner Air France may be the best for their schedule, they are the WORST for free tickets. Delta's award chart is the least generous and availability is the worse than American's or the Star Alliance options.

You may be stuck choosing between nonstop LAX-CDG versus a better mileage program.

No argument here. But if most of his traveling is to France and he desires the most convenience based on his location, Skyteam sounds like the way to go.

However, yes, if he doesn't mind connecting somewhere, I would advocate AA as it seems to be the easiest to earn and redeem.

I live in Santa Barbara and moved over exclusively to AA in 2002. Prior to that I split my travel between UA and AA and flew Delta occasionally. I know the AAdvantage program very well, I have a good grasp of the MP program but I don't know the Delta program well enough to give you honest advice on that one. If you want free international upgrades, I'm assuming that you will reach the highest tier and will do a few MR's if needed. I wouldn't count on the double mile promotions but I do know that UA and AA always match each other when the other announces such a program. I fly 6x/year to Europe, 6x/year to Asia and about 12 domestic trips/year on AA so here is why I'd recommend AA:

1. AA and UA have a much bigger presence on the west coast than Delta, especially LAX and if you want to fly out of SBA. I'm not sure where you will fly domestically but if you fly to JFK, the AFS is great in my opinion.
2. The only direct flight from LAX to CDG is on AF, a Delta partner, but I think you have to pay full fare if you want to upgrade. You will need to connect if you fly AA, but if you are willing to be a mileage runner, I am sure a connection doesn't bother you. You can fly LAX-LHR and use the BA F Gallery lounge or the AA arrivals lounge. The F Gallery is very nice. You will get to use the First Class lounge at LAX as an EXP traveling internationally as well as all of the other OW first class lounges when traveling internationally.
3. If you reach EXP on AA, you will receive 8 EVIP's, good for upgrades anywhere on AA metal. If you fly 4-5 times to Paris each year, you could use your EVIP's for 4 of those trips. AA offered 4 extra EVIPS last year if you hit 125,000 EQM. You can use EVIP's on any fare. UA provides 6 systemwide upgrades at 100,000 miles and I believe they are somewhat restrictive.
4. The award program is very generous at AA and there is expanded availability as an EXP.
5. The EXP agents are fantastic and I have never had an unpleasant experience with them.
6. If you plan to travel to South America, AA has a great presence there. AA is weaker in the Far East than UA. They only fly direct to NRT, PVG, and PEK (starting in April). You will need to connect through ORD for PVG or PEK but those extra miles add up! And if you can ever experience CX's first class lounge at the Wing, it is hands down the best airport lounge in my opinion. The Peninsula catered restaurant is very nice and the cabanas are incredible. And when you want to take that trip to Asia, use your miles for a first class ticket on CX!
7. You will get free domestic upgrades on all of the programs. I can't speak for the other programs but I can't remember the last time I haven't been upgraded on AA. I hear it is more competitive for those open seats in the other programs, especially out of LAX.

I recommend reading the stickys in each program's forum, there's tons of great info there to help you make a decision. I'd also check out these recent posts in the AA forum about Delta PMs switching to AA:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ion-delta.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ng-aa-exp.html

Good luck!

I also forgot to add this very informative post:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...mond-long.html

Extremely helpful! Thank you!

If the OPs goal is to get top elite and retain status perhaps non-stops are not what he should base this on.

I agree. I've had horrible experiences trying to redeem my Delta points. I use to have the American Express Sky Miles card but got rid of it once I found out how difficult it was to redeem the points. American Airlines miles were much easier to redeem.

EXACTLY!!!

Non-stop minimizes your miles, meaning you will likely need to buy more tickets for Mileage Runs to requalify/retain status you want.

AA's DFW base is great for MRs, I've found. Does a nice job adding more miles. Even WAS to Hawaii is longer via DFW than ORD (due to having to go around a wider "great circle" rather than being able to short-cut over the globe a bit).

I've even done what may be some of the craziest MR routings:

WAS to LGA via DFW (and the next weekend was via DFW then STL and RDU);

and especially WAS to FRA via DFW via SEA!!! It was winter MRs, and I both did not want to waste eVIPs on RJs to ORD or JFK or BOS nor get stuck in snow/weather [and those in 762s], and I noticed that SEA to FRA was through DFW and on 772, and BWI to SEA is a pretty good MR route (both through DFW, or in warmer months via JFK w/ more elite bonus miles for the short RJ), so I did BWI-DFW-SEA-DFW-FRA-DFW-SEA-DFW-BWI, twice. Crapload of miles.

DFW is a nice airport with fast airside trains going both directions around the airport.

AA also has the most generous lifetime elite status deal there is, being able to qualify using ALL miles earned any which way. Better hop on that ASAP as when they do get around to updating their software, the likelyhood of their still offering that goes way down (they had the first computerized reservation system, and having the oldest means having to do the most to update/replace it, which is why they are the last to do that--only ones who haven't done that yet might be a better way of putting it).

Steve32