Cheers for the replies, so far. The only thing that is putting me off AA is the lack of points earning potential in Australia via credit cards etc

On Oz:

40000 Amex MR = 20000 SPG
20000 SPG = 25000 AA

Off topic for this thread
Aust Amex to Starwood SPG to airlines works for some
http://catalogue.membershiprewards.c...orySearch=true
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...tner_list.html
1 AA mile is worth a lot more than 1 QF point

perfect, i didn't find that route, just a shame Amex isn't accepted everywhere

I assessed that with my flying patterns status with OW is out of reach. But let me cross check here.

(1) What is your home airport?
Reply: CPH, WAW
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: economy, about 100 segments intra Europe a year + 3-4 long hauls a year
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: low economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: I travel for work, but most on my personal expense. I can choose airlines. So far I see no better way than to fly at least 50-60 segments in Europe with *A, based on my locations. But the rest I can consider reallocating (and this 50-60 segments gives me *G).
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: intra Europe.
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it?
Reply: I am only *G and have access to Diners Club lounges.
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: lounge access > priority > upgrades matter. The rest does not matter for me at all.
(8) Preferred Airlines: from CPH/WAW I can use AY, BA, AB. On long-hauls to US I can use AA perhaps 1-2 times a year.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
LHR and LGW

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
No idea, regular trips to Europe (mainly Germany) starting up from December for work with 2-4 trips to Hong Kong. I always spend NYE in Dubai and I tend to go to Dubai for family gatherings.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
First and Business class.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Yes I can choose my airline that I fly on. Mainly pleasure but work requires trips to Europe now.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often?
I'll be flying London - Europe routes most by years end, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and Russia. Until now it would be London - Dubai.

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it?
None.

(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
I want a good all rounder really, status would be important I guess as well as ease of earning miles outside of flying.

(8) Preferred Airlines
Emirates, I know it's not part of an alliance but it's still my favourite :p

While I filled in the above, I was thinking about joining MPC as should I get the AMEX Plat it'll come with MPC Gold (apparently) which give BA benefits.

Dear all,

Thanks for your advise in advance.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: ZRH
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: 60k, Business
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Business
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Star Alliance and One World are allowed, mostly work
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Transatlantic East (min 2/year) and West Coast (min 2/ year)
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: LH Frequent Traveller (02/14), A3 Gold, BA Blue
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: Free Lounge Access, Priority Services
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: Swiss, Lufthansa, British Airways

I already use OW and have an idea of what is good, though I'm interested to hear a 3rd party's perspective. Thanks in advance!

Let me give this a go, just to see if I'm doing the right thing or shooting myself in the foot...

(1) home airport - AMS/LON
(2) miles flown each year & in what class? - 30k per year discount Y, 10k per year J.
(3) types of fares bought - mostly discount Y, but can go J if price is good.
(4) choice of airlines/cabins. work and/or pleasure? BA AMS-LON (work), free choice for pleasure otherwise.
(5) routes flown most often - AMS-LON, AMS/LON-TPE, AMS-LAX
(6) current FFP status - TK Elite, KL Gold, AA Gold, CX Gold,
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? - good redemption rates, lounge access, good award space, duration of elite status. (In that order)
(8) Preferred Airlines - AMS-LON has to be in BA due to work, but free choice other than that.

Long time since I logged in! I'm getting very disillusioned with QFF, I'm giving up on crawling towards lifetime gold, and now I am based in London I think it's time for a change. Essentially, AA or BAEC?

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: LON
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: 150-170K
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Discount economy, lately W
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: BA is the only real choice for where I fly to. Mostly fly for work.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: LHR-HKG, LHR-NBO, LHR-JFK, LHR-SFO, LHR-BOM
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: QF Platinum
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: Upgrades, lounge access, award redemption rates
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: Not necessarily preferred, but BA most frequently, then CX and AA

Any advice would be much appreciated.

For upgrades the general rule is you can only upgrade a flight marketed (flight number) and operated (metal) by the airline of your freq flyer programme (no codeshares). All subject to the t&c's of your FFP and your paid ticket. Low cost tickets are often not eligable for upgrades. However as is the way with FFP's there are some (expensive) upgrade exceptions with AA/BA/IB with higher priced economy fares.

For long haul award redemption rates AA wins by a big margin. BA is OK for short haul, but beware the YQ

AA plat challege may interest you

Thanks. Do we have a feel for how much BAEC members are better treated by BA on their own flights, vs others like QFF and AA? I had 74 BA flights in a row without an upgrade, for example, even as QFF-P/OW-E. I had BAEC-B people literally sitting next to me being upgraded!

Generally BA upgrade only for operational reasons, e.g. overbooking with seats available in a higher cabin, or very occasionally for service recovery.

Experience seems to be that BA will upgrade their own elites before anyone in the same tier, and occasionally will upgrade blue and bronze members before gold and silver - other factors may apply here such as frequency of travel/booking and the passenger's CIV score, or it may be a case of late-processed upgrades not going to the correct person.

An a non-BA elite travelling on BA you'd be less likely to receive an op-up than a BA elite, and possibly might sometimes be trumped by a BA blue, but you would be more likely to receive an op-up than a non-member.

Thanks very much. So in summary, I could move to AA and get treated much the same as I am now but with much better miles redemption, or move to BAEC to get treated somewhat better but have relatively poor miles redemption?

With that much flying, and if in W (World Traveller Plus) I'd be inclined to split my accrual between AA and BA. Here's why:

AA allows you to achieve Executive Platinum (Oneworld Emerald) either by flying 100,000 elite-qualifying miles (1 EQM = 1 butt-in-seat mile) OR by accruing 100,000 elite-qualifying points (EQP). Top economy fare classes, including Y and B, and all World Traveller Plus, business and first class buckets earn 1.5 EQP/Mile, hence it "only" takes 66,667 BIS miles in WT+ (such as your W flights) to get to EXP. That gets you access to first class lounges everywhere, unlimited upgrades on domestic AA flights in the US, and eight one-way SWUs annually on AA metal. Flights in BA WT+ also earn a 10% mileage bonus on top of the 100% bonus on BIS miles that comes to AA Platinum (OW Sapphire) and above, so, for example, if you flew the minimum 66,667 miles in WT+ to accrue AA EXP, you'd also accrue 140,000 spendable AA miles. (Class of service bonuses are 25% for business class and 50% on first class.)

But 66,667 miles allocated to AA leaves a lot of your miles on the table. Depending on the number of segments flown in your travels to NBO, HKG et al, you might very well be able to achieve BA Gold (OW Emerald) in addition to AA EXP. (On BA it would depend on the total number of tier points earned.)

In the course of that, you'd also be accruing quite a lot of BA miles. Without a doubt, one of the best uses of BA miles is for upgrades on BA metal. By buying W fares, your upgrades on BA would be to Club. For example, upgrading to NBO or HKG would require 25,000 Avios, a bargain compared to a straight redemption.

In terms of mileage redemptions, AA is, for the most part, more generous than BA, but there are notable exceptions, particularly in business class redemptions on certain short-haul routes, and also some routes not originating in the UK. But as mentioned, the big difference is BA's inclusion of its punishing fuel surcharges on redemption tickets - often nearly as much as the cost of a basic economy ticket - in addition to the "cost" in Avios. For example, charging US$1000 in fuel fines (YQ) as well as 100,000 Avios for a Club return trip to, say, San Francisco, reduces the value of the points considerably. AA, by comparison, won't charge you the YQ for flights on its own metal, so the 100,000 AA miles you'd use for the same trip are, in essence, way more valuable.

So the upshot would be that having a supply of both AA miles - for straight redemptions, and BA Avios - for MFUs, might be the way to go. Certainly it seems that you'd be flying enough for that to make sense.

Miles spread across AAdvantage, Asia Miles and Delta
 

I had some unexpected long haul flights this year and I went about it without any FF strategy ever since I gave up my status on United. :(

I have 18k on Delta and 35k on Asia Air. In Dec, I'm flying JFK-LHR-ZRH roundtrip on British Air business class. (not sure what the accrual is)

What FF program should I go with? Marco Polo or AAdvantage?

Should I attempt to transfer my 18k Delta miles to whatever account I end up selecting?

Totally lost. Any advice appreciated.