I think that AA has a special relationship of some sort with the identified oneworld carriers; I know that AA is in a joint-business venture with at least some of them.

By the way, if you're considering crediting the recent AA flights to IB and do not yet have an Iberia Plus account, be careful: I know that Iberia lets existing members seek retroactive credit, but I'm not sure if Iberia lets one seek retroactive credit for flights that took place before one joined Iberia Plus. In any case, you would only need 50 more Iberia Elite points by March 31 to get Iberia Oro, if you credit the upcoming QR roundtrip to Iberia. Any other travel -- even domestic travel -- before March 31?

And yes, I remember the saga of your trip home from BCN; just did not remember that that was you. Glad that you made it back eventually.

Ah, good to know. I haven’t thought about any future travel yet, still recovering from that BCN-JFK return lol. But I’m sure I can figure something out.

Thanks again, you’ve been super helpful! 🙏🏼

Asking for my septuagenarian widowed mother. I think I'm deciding between BA, AS and AA but maybe I'm missing something.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Miles not expiring due to inactivity; getting some sort of value (tiny discount, ability to redeem miles for ancillary benefits) without too much effort learning all the ins and outs of the program.

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Under 30,000. Domestic within Canada and one or two transatlantics. Usually in Y or in PY if not too much more.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Economy.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Pleasure. Most travel would be AC, but need somewhere to dump the BA miles when the schedule/price is more appealing.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
AC YYZ-YEG, YYZ-LHR

(6) What is your home airport?
YYZ or YXU

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
None.

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Air Canada, WestJet (I know, not relevant to OW).

Frankly, with mostly domestic travel, and just one or two annual trans-Atlantic roundtrips in Economy, your Mom is not going to be able to accrue much of value in AA miles, or BA Avios. Neither can be redeemed for domestic travel within Canada. (AA will not sell Canada-U.S.-Canada as a single, one-way award.) If she had any interest in flying from Canada to the U.S or Caribbean, that would give the nod slightly to AA over BA, as AA award redemptions include connecting flights, when needed; BA, on the other other hand, charges for each flight flown.

Dear all,

i was wondering if someone familiar with Royal Jordanian - Royal Club could help to verify this information I received from one of their agents.

My understanding was for requalification of Gold Sparrow status via tier miles, one would need to clock in 30,000 tier miles AND fly a minimum of 10 segments on RJ metal even if requalifying through the tier miles route.

However, I received this reply recently. Based on your experience and knowledge of their T&Cs, has anything changed or agent provided inaccurate informain?

If this is accurate, RJ would be one of the easiest oneworld FFP to earn status with.

Thank you!

Sorry unable to post screenshot as I have not posted at least 5x, but sharing a direct quote from the email from RJ on Gold qualification requirement

Any OW program offers 2-year qualification period? TIA.

LAX

Qatar Privilege Club has 12 and 24 month qualification, I’m not sure if it’s only for renewal or also for new members.

(1) What is your home airport? GSP/AVL
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Main Cabin
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year?(0-5k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a PFPetc.) FOR me it’s redemption rates at main cabin flexible fare awards.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often US Domestic Airlines Only
(7) Preferred Airlines= Anything but Allegiant, Spirit & Frontier.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you choose your airlines, class of service?) Pleasure and main cabin.

Really if you're flying 5k or less miles a year that's not enough to build up any meaningful balance, so I'd be booking based on convenience. I think you'd be best to couple it with a credit card, assuming you spend a decent amount. Chase issues UA, Citi and Barclay's for AA, BOA for AS, and Amex for Delta. All give similar benefits on their respective airlines and all offer pretty decent sign up bonuses, but especially with Amex it's worth checking what the highest bonuses have been and wait for a similar offer. The highest level card that includes lounge access probably doesn't make sense for you, but the next level down often has a pretty attractive bonus.

There are cards also for other airlines, like Chase has BA and IB cards, but if you're not flying international they wouldn't be as beneficial as the AA or AS card if looking for OneWorld miles. There's also a JL and CX card, but both US market cards are garbage.

Since you're posting in the oneworld FFP thread, I assume that you're asking whether it's best to join AA vs. AS, BA, IB, or some other oneworld program. For your situation, I think that you'd get the best bang for the buck joining AAdvantage, since they are the oneworld carrier you will be flying out of AVL/GSP. And with AA, you can get generous credit-card sign-up bonuses from two different issuers: Barclays and Citi.

Even if you weren't asking only about oneworld programs, my recommendation would still be AA. AA often offers very low redemption rates for domestic Coach travel, and you can easily get a lot of miles from the two different credit cards.

For new members, it's 12 months to achieve the initial level. 150/300/600 Q points. Then it's a reduced amount to re-qualify. As soon as you achieve a level, the clock starts ticking for renewal within the next 12 months for that level. For a 12 month period you would only need 540 Q points to renew at Platinum, or else they would also look at the previous 2 years to see total Q points. Not sure if it's 1080 for the 2 year period.

that can work however if you are going into Europe you're better off going something like Iberia Plus/British airways excutive club. Remember the maximum tier allows you to gain access to American Airlines Flagship lounges Admirals Club even though you are traveling in main cabin only within the United States. That's the advantage of foreign FFQ

Very true. But HotelAspiration noted the following in his inquiry:

"(5) What is most important to you in a PFPetc.) FOR me it’s redemption rates at main cabin flexible fare awards.

"(6) Which routes do you fly most often US Domestic Airlines Only"

Since he is flying out of GSP/AVL, he may well be connecting somewhere on AA. On connecting routes, BA/IB is likely to charge more for such trips than AA would. For example, for travel from GSP to LAX in March, you can get a one-stop, Main Cabin itinerary for just 8,500 AA miles. I expect that you would pay a lot more than that if redeeming Avios.

They also mentioned only flying 5,000 miles a year unless that was a typo. Can't even qualify for base level OW Ruby status with that, so better off with an AA credit card where you can spend your way to status if desired.

get it now about that