2008 quandary: which to shoot for?
 

I'm torn between two options in planning for 2008 and thought I'd poll the collective wisdom of FTers here.

I'm currently lifetime Platinum (mid-tier) with AA and Gold (top-tier) with bmi. In looking at 2008, I'll probably have about 60-65,000 miles of "legitimate" flying: 3-4 trips from the U.S. east coast to Europe/the Middle East, one to Australia, and about 4 within the U.S. I could push up the miles a bit with indirect routings, but work schedules prevent much of that. More travel may show up, but some of the plans may go away, so that's a good guess.

I could focus on *A and requalify for bmi Gold easily, with no need for heroic measures. (My bmi status year starts and ends mid-September, with nothing on the counter for 2007-2008 to date and no flying at all planned for the rest of this year.)

Or, I could focus on OW, turn the Australia trip into an RTW, do things like fly BOS-LHR via ORD, and with a bit more time and money, move from PLT to EXP while dropping to bmi Silver (soft landing).

All things being equal, AA EXP is much more useful to me than bmi Gold, but is it that much more useful? I don't know. There's definitely something liberating about not being tied to one airline.

To make things more complicated, we just bought a house (closed yesterday) and my Bimmer, now with 275,000+ miles, is due for replacement soon. (One of the European trips would be to Munich to pick up a new one.) The house limits time, and they both limit money, a bit.

I'm trying to decide soon in order to plan a short January warm-weather break and book a February trip to the U.K. before the cheap bmi fares go away (must purchase by Nov. 28) if I go that route.

Thoughts, suggestions, random musings, even bad jokes would be appreciated.

How long have you had BD *G? Lifetime Diamond Club Gold may be a reasonable target if you've had it for a while.

Aiming for BD *G in and of itself is not a great idea, IMHO, particularly if you have any significant number of years left to go... the consensus appears to be that the FFP will have become part of M&M long before a decade is up...

Pertinent if only have a couple of years to go (out of 10? required for lifetime).

Personally, with a travel pattern that could easily include either or both alliances I'd stick with *A because PLT gets many of the same benefits as EXP, whereas *S has very little benefits compared with *G. OW Sapphire is basically a *G-lite.

First year. Lifetime is a ways off. So, with bmi it's fly it or lose it, but with AA I can sit at home (or fly all *A) and still keep PLT.

The key differences as I see them are (in no particular order):

1. Access to AA's EXP desk. They've spoiled me in the past and I miss them now. That said, in 8+ months since losing EXP status, I haven't had a need that "PLT desk" agents didn't handle efficiently, courteously and correctly, with very little time on hold.

2. Fee waivers, which would probably save me about $150 per year.

3. System-wide upgrades. Unfortunately, I wouldn't get these in time to use on 2008 travel, and my life seems to alternate lean and fat travel years, so their value in 2009 (when I'll probably fly less) is likely to be less than one might hope. (I don't like the eBay option with these.)

4. Flagship/First Class Lounge access on overseas itineraries. See #3 above.

(There are other benefits, this isn't the place for a complete list, but those wouldn't matter much to me.)

Also, in doing research triggered by a PM in response to the aside about BMWs in my first post, I found that Lufthansa has a 2-for-1 deal for flying to Munich to pick up a European Delivery BMW. It books into Q, which only earns half miles on bmi, but that shouldn't be a problem. The savings would be nice.

Since you have lifetime Platinum on AA, the benefits of accumulating qualifying miles/points/segments on AA is greatly reduced, so I would go for top-tier with bmi.

oh i feel for you. i have 2 million miles spead out...but because they all came from credit cards...i get no status and am treated like a common person. sure i fly 1st class...but you d a m n 1k and plat exp and alike all take upgrades that should be mine. status should be based on miles no matter how i got them. am i mad...i went to d.c. to take a buddy to dinner for his 40th. got my upgrade on friday's flight...ritz was great...$2,000.00 dinner at the plam -great 1995 cab 3btls : )- and sunday at airport i went from 3 on waitlist to 16 because everyone had status. so i paid 2600.00 for a 1st class seat on a 777 a hour later. [Remainder of post removed by Moderator. Belongs in Coupon Connection which writer is not eligible for.]