Requesting clarification for myself:

If I were to become an AA Gold/Plat, upgrading domestically on a ~ 2k mile RT flight would cost me four 500 mile stickers + $100 for that RT flight?

From what I had read in the AA forum a while back I thought that the domestic sticker upgrades didn't come with an associated fee to use them, but it's been a bit since I considered switching and I could just be mixed up.

Thanks!

peace,
~Ben~

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'm thinking at this stage, I will try to go with UA & NW (forcing it through & pushing NW/DL flights) as my primary carriers & may attempt a challenge with AA if I can pull it off with 2 transcons. I don't like the concept of having to blatantly pay for the ability to UG on international flights - whereas my business won't take me internationally, I have friends in Thailand & the Netherlands that I visit & I have been lucky enough recently to find decent upgradeable UA fares or use my miles for premium cabins to S.E.A. - across the pond in coach is fine as I'm east coast based. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up on NW & UA's just got more mileage earning opportunity overall than AA appears to.

I just dropped about $900 in airfare & $300 in rental cars for 2 business trips, & $250 on a new Blackberry for work today. I spent $1284 in all of 2005 for my NW Plat status of 78K EQMs & ~$300 on US Silver status for 26K EQMs. I never realized how damn expensive "real" air travel costs! Gonna rack up a slew of Amex Rewards points!

You can earn stickers (4 per 10,000 miles flown) or purchase them ($25 each). The 2k flight would require 4 stickers. If you had earned them, you could use them, no additional fee. If you had no stickers in your "bank" (i.e., you had already used all you had earned), you could buy 4 stickers for $100.

To the OP: Your plan sounds good to me. The main advantage I see to AAdvantage (and the reason I use them) is award ticket availability, which I think is much better than other U.S. legacy carriers. Since you won't be using miles for award tickets much, you are probably better off with other carriers as indicated.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I rarely use award tickets for myself - in the past few years that I've been "playing the mileage earning game" - I've earned about 800K in all programs & have only cashed out about 155K for myself (120K on int'l travel & 35K to stage a MR/Vacation out of SEA) - the other ~250K that I have cashed out have been for family members & gifts for friends - I only really want to use my miles for personal premium cabin int'l travel & hooking up my friends who can't necessarily afford the airfare to come on vacation with me. The only time I've ever paid the premium prices for awards was for the trip to SEA where I did one way in Y & the other way in F & that was only 35K & I got upgraded on the outbound as NW Gold.

GEMAC is your friend.

Great Circle Mapper indicates that one-way nonstops from DCA to each of those airports, once, would already give you 56000 BIS miles (well, leaving out PNF and replacing BOZ with BZN; all the others appear to exist and be in North America!). That's 112K roundtrip.

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=d...OR=&MAP-STYLE=

Since a lot of places you'd have to connect to, in reality it would be more, particularly if you're going to visit places twice.

So why can't you make AA EXP? The challenge is a piece of cake with that kind of schedules, so you'll be Plat and earning a 100% bonus very quickly; if you plan to keep up this kind of schedule long, the free domestic upgrades for AA EXP seem by far the best deal for you. It sounds like AA EXPs really do get 90-100% upgrade rates almost systemwide - and the eVIPs are icing on the cake for you. Plus you get award miles you can use.

Of the legacy six, I prefer AA by a longshot over the others. That said, out of DC, with PremEx already in-hand, I'd probably go UA. For one, it has the strongest schedule out of DC, whether you use UA or US. Transcon nonstop? No problem, and you'll probably have multiple flights to pick from. Plenty of short-hops throughout the northeast? Again, no problem and lots of choices. Second, with PremEx in-hand, it's a no-brainer. Flying that diverse of a route map, you're also bound to hit a lot of the one-off promos that UA always seems to have going. You are going to pile up the miles in a major way!

If AA really intrigues you, your idea of a Plat Challenge with a couple of transcons is fine. But unless I was really thinking of switching to AA, I'd probably just continue to enjoy my double miles on UA, E+, upgrades, etc.


One other thing...if costs are an issue, fly to MCI and drive to Salina. It's only about a 2:20 drive...a straight shot out I-70. Unless your connection is perfect, you won't be leaving much time on the table at all. I wouldn't want to do that drive vs. sitting back and collecting an extra 1000 miles, but it's an option...

I guess Delta's out of the race

Considering where you are, you may be making the right choice splitting UA and NW.

However, in my opion, you really should not count this as a strike against AA. Lets compare with NW.
On NW, you have to buy B or Y. So to go to Asia you would pay $1600+ or so plus miles.
On AA, you can buy deep discount econ. So to go to Asia, you could pay $700 for the cheapest N or L ticket + $500 in upgrade fees = $1200 total plus miles.

In this scenario, AA clearly wins even though they have a co-pay.

UA is only better if you can find cheap enough upgradable fares - which yes, you sometimes can, but can't count on it costing less than AA.

For domestic upgrades, AA EXP wins if you can make it. Unlimitted domestic upgrades on any fare with most people EXPs getting 90% to 100% success rates. On UA, 1Ks do not get free unlimitted domestic upgrades.

For international upgrades, AA gives 8 systemwides to EXP verses UA 6. Both allow free upgrades from low fares and no copay.

It seems to me that with connections and all the trips you are planning, you really should get about 80K BIS from you business travel. If you are on higher fares, this will give you EXP on AA from points alone. (on high fare buckets you get 1.5 points per mile flown). 100K points OR 100K miles = EXP If your fares aren't high enough, add 20K/year in leisure and you would have it.

AA EXP would give you:
- Unlimtted free domestic upgrades on any fare with very high success rate
- 8 international upgrades from deep discount fares with no co-pay per year

If I were in your situation, I probably would go 100% AA...but that is me.

A good point, but I wouldn't do this between Dec. 1 and Apr. 1. The interstate tends to close when the blowing snow drifts get over 6 feet.

Thanks again, everyone, for your input! It does seem like the AA folks are really happy with their airline. I still think that it'd make sense for me to go the UA/NW route instead of AA at this point because of the already comped PremEx & the fact that there are always a hell of a lot of promos out of DC on UA for bonus miles.

Also another thing that I just realized, with the pre-comp to PremEx til 2007, I figure if I fly 50K EQMs this year on UA, then I'll hit UA1K - which, if I do that, I may consider having UA as my primary carrier for 2007. Unfortunately, I already booked my SEA trip on DL - however, I'll book the SJC trip on UA.

As for the SLN trip, I already bought a ticket on NW to fly into ICT & drive to SLN - it's about an hour & a half according to mapquest.

This is not the way comps normally work. Your YTD qualifying counter only shows miles you actually have flown regardless of what status you have been given.

You have some strange math going here - You've been given 1P not 50K EQMs - your EQM counter is at zero so you'll have to earn all 100 EQMs to get to 1K (or utilize one of the EQM promos UA is so fond of these days).

Damn! I thought I was really getting hooked up here! Still standing by the UA/NW decision for now - although the AA people have presented some good arguements, I think that in the long run, UA will be more beneficial than AA will be.