Stay with Qantas or move to AA?
 

I'll try to keep this short.

I'm been a FF with qantas since 97. I now live in the US and have gold status with them but it's unlikely that I'll retain gold this year.

My co-worker pointed out that it's easier to earn and maintain status with american than qantas and looking at the programs this appears to be the case. Through my work I have access to AA status matching but it's unclear if this covers qantas (the match form lists BA, Delta, US airways, continental and a few others).

I called AA this morning and they've setup AAvantage account and given me gold status today (not platinum which qantas gold actually maps to). I'm flying to LHR tonight on from SFO on BA so I need to decide which FF # I use for this flight.

I'm tending towards moving over to AA. I can continue to use my gold qantas membership to access lounges and the gold aa status to use priority boarding etc. Any advice or things that I'm missing?

Thanks,

Simon

Which is easier to earn status on does depend on what class of travel you tend to use. If travelling in 1st or business, then will earn status a lot quicker with Qantas whilst economy travel will tend to be easier to earn status on AA

I would recommend crediting to AA for a much better value earn/burn rate.

If in discount economy from SFO-LHR, which is of distance 5368 miles

Crediting to Qantas

Base miles will be 0.25 * 5368 = 1342 plus gold bonus of 671 for a total of 2013

Crediting to AA

Base miles will be 5368 plus gold bonus of 1342 for a total of 6710 miles

If in WT+/J/F the QF earnings would be 1342 points higher than AA , but the AA points are worth more

Thanks for the advice. I ended up putting it on my AA account.