On high level terms what is needed for achieving that?

(1) What is your home airport?
Brussels (BRU)
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
in the past 25K in Y and 20K in C, in the near future probably more
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Discounted Y and discounted C.
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Can mostly choose airline but not class (see explanation below). Travel 90% for work.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
Intra-Europe, Intercontinental (North and South America, Asia)
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it?
Miles&More FTL (*A Silver)
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Lounge access, upgrade, redemptions
(8) Preferred Airlines
Prefer *A, hope to make it SEN this year.

As I cannot always justify choosing a much more expensive flight on *A, I will need to make some intercontinental trips on OneWorld.
Thanks for your suggestions..

It depends on which flights you most likely move from *A to OW. As you are based in Belgium, I guess it's rather long haul, because you probably want to fly directly on European flights and OW is not paricularly good from BRU. This means BA might be a good choice, as they are better than other if you travel in J.

Thanks Swiss_global. Was thinking BA As well but maybe I was missing something. OW will indeed be almost exclusively on longhaul.

advantage vs ba executive
 

Sorry it has been asked many times before but I am having real difficulties deciding which of the two programmes to use. I currently have a household account with BA exec (got bumped down to Bronze :(

I am based in London. My year looks approx. like this:

3 transatlantic flights to the US (economy)
10 flights US domestic (economy)
2 flights to asia (sometimes business, sometimes economy)
1 flight to Australia (business)
20-30 flights within EU (economy)

I like to travel BA.
Rest of family (2 people): 1 flight to Asia each (economy) and under 10 flights each within Europe (economy).

Which programme would be best for me to maximise value? My priorities would be to be able to upgrade to business with miles (or use miles to purchase flights) and access to a lounge.

I find it very difficult to understand the Aadvantage programme and found BA exec always very user-friendly and the website is a pleasure to navigate. However it seems much easier to attain decent status with aadvantage and get transatlantic upgrades. Is this right?
Should I continue to stick with BA in that case?

I would suggest you first read back through your own thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...e-dilemma.html

And this is better off in here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html

AA Miles can only upgrade BA flights booked in Y or B economy, or W for premium economy (which are the most expensive fares).
Similarly, BA Avios can only upgrade the highest AA economy fares.
AA has system wide upgrades for AA metal.

You can only upgrade 1 cabin, the best value is booking Premium Economy (World Traveller Plus) and upgrade to Business (Club World) subject to availability. This only requires 50% of the economy miles, so TATL it can be as low as 12,500 avios.

To get lounge access, you need to be OneWorld Sapphire or Emerald (AA Platinum or BA Silver). With AA this is easier to achieve flying economy, however you don't get US Domestic lounge access.

Pros for BA are the upgrades from WTP to CW, Reward Flight Saver European flights, and Lounge access for US domestic
Pros for AA are better earn/burn rates, systemwide upgrades (if you would achieve that status)

"I would suggest you first read back through your own thread:"

I did, many times. And I still can't figure it out. I don't really want to leave BA exec but can't find a rational argument not to. As I fly mostly economy it seems it would be better to leave BA.

Looking at your flying, if all of it is on OW carriers then you should make BA Gold or AA EXP.

Each program has its own Pros and Cons, only you can really decide which is more appropriate for you. There is no straightforward answer. If you are able to book Premium Economy fares then BAEC may be better for the ability to upgrade to CW. Else, AA may be better with the System Wide Upgrades (although you'd need to fly AA metal TATL).

Thanks. Think will continue with BA. I can't stand AA's economy (if I'd have to stick with AA TATL).

The other good thing is the household account with BA (I presume there is no equivalent with AA?) which enables sharing avios easily. (Though I guess you can just use AA miles to purchase a ticket for someone else?)

However I am always amazed how much in taxes you have to pay when you purchase BA tickets with miles (something that's supposed to be 'free'). That and the availability for reward flights (non-existant with BA). I presume this is where AA really shines.

No HHA with AA, but yes you could redeem points for a ticket in someone elses name.

BA does not charge higher taxes, but does charge a fuel surcharge (YQ), but taxes/charges are low for CX and AA domestic flights among others. AA charges YQ for TATL now I believe.

For OW partner airlines, AA and BA see the same availability.

AAdvantage members have access to AAnytime awards for AA flights at double the mileage for any flight.
Otherwise BAEC has the same availability on AA (MileSAAver awards).

Definitely BA!
If you fly AA domestic you'll have to pay for lounge access if you're aadvantage member.
You should be able to reach Gold status with BA, I'd suggest you to book your trip to Australia separately if you fly BA (under the same booking but separate flights, use Multy-City on BA.com) as you'll earn more TP.
You will be offered also CE online upgrades, so if you'll be close to gold threshold you may decide to upgrade for like 80£.
I think 1500 TPs are easier to get than 100.000 miles

I am going to move this to the existing sticky thread regarding OW FFPs.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

Thanks! I don't know if I will be able to reach gold; it seems so distant..

CE upgrades: actually I always wanted to know: do the tier points from these count as CE or as economy? (as £80 is quite cheap compared to what one normally would pay).

Multi-city: would the price be different if I did it like that?

Tier Points count as CE and 80£ is usually the offer price to upgrade your economy ticket. If you often fly to Europe with BA it's worth (flying CE to Paris for example gives you 80 TPs, flying WT to NYC 70...)
Multy-city: I did it twice and the price wasn't different or changed very little, flying Club from LHR to AUS return you get 600 TPs.
You said you fly twice to Asia in club so would make again around 600 TPs, plus transatlantic and many short segments you'll easily hit 1500 TPs

Just a reminder that in-depth discussions of individual airline FFPs should take place on that airline's forum.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator