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.

RJ Gold Requalification via tier miles doesn't require min. RJ segments anymore?
 

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.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b6889bb0ed.png

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

Recommendations for a newly HKG based traveler
 

Thanks in advance for any advice! I relocated from NYC to HKG a couple of months ago and will be in HKG for the next 2-5 years. I was mostly flying DL/VS/CX prior to the move. I credited a lot of my old CX flights to AS, so I have status + miles there, but now I'm wondering if CX makes more sense given I'm based out of HKG, and given the difficulty in finding awards availability on CX via AS? I still have some family in the US, so I'd be happy to use my miles to buy them flights to visit HKG.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Good award redemption rates, better award access, upgrades on travel - specifically looking to upgrade my family on flights to HKG. I haven't been great at using either my Amex points or FFP miles to book flights and am also looking to do this more.

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
>50k mi
<25 sectors

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Long haul - Business
Short haul - Economy / cheapest

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Can choose airline/class
Long haul - for work
Short haul (mostly within East Asia) - for pleasure

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
CX
HKG-NYC-HKG (~2x per year), HKG-LHR-HKG (~1x per year), and smaller trips within Asia

(6) What is your home airport?
HKG

(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?
AS MVP Gold - 70k miles
DL Silver Medallion - 70k miles

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Mostly fly CX these days for work and convenience out of HKG

With apologies to CX management and employees, unless you plan to never return to the USA I would stay with the Alaska program.
Just ensure your CX flights will credit to the AS program.

And continue your wandering
Fred

Hi,
As I just confirmed my xCAI DONE3, I would like to get some opinion on how to optimize with FFP.
I am current Enrich Platinum, equivalent OWE, which I am not quite happy with the miles conversion, thus, I am considering if I should take this opportunity to switch.
Here's my segment, SP and miles that I use QR/CX website to calculate.
Is my understanding correct that it's easier to gain status/miles in QR compare to CX?
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fbbc157a7a.jpg

Questions
For members asking for information, to help people to assist you, can you please provide:
(1) 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 and tickets redemption
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
(<25000, 25000-50000, >50000 miles - <25, 25-50, >50 flights?)
Reply: exclude this RTW trip, yearly between 20k-30k, mostly in SEA (economy), with 1 trip each to US/EU/Australia (Business)
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: within SEA - Economy, SEA -> US/EU/Australia Business
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: 60 work : 40 pleasure
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
(US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: MH within SEA
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: KUL
(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?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: Enrich Platinum under Malaysia Airlines, equivalent to OWE
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: Preferred QR or CX

I don't think you have a wrong answer with either, depending on how you fly. Both are somewhat similar in terms of redemption based on distance. If you transit DOH a lot then QR status would be better but only if you can achieve Platinum. Avios have an advantage that they can be shifted easily between QR, BA, IB, and EI, maybe soon AY too but they don't have sexy redemption rates on long haul flights. Nor does CX for that matter. If you want long haul flight redemptions in OneWorld then AA and AS tend to be better but might be harder to gain status in, especially the first year in AA.

I know it's not a perfect answer, there's never a perfect answer for these questions without knowing your flight history for the last 2 years and next 2 years.

Hi, I guess I should post it here instead of The Oneworld Explorer User Guide. I'm having a RTW trip coming up as DONE5, all in business class D, here are some, would much appreciate to use some advice on which FFP I should go for under this ticket. the bracket airports are connections while the rest are stopovers. I'm also open to ideas to make changes of this ticket within reasonable costs to add more destinations or have more stopovers. thanks in advance!

May 2024 CAI-(LHR) via BA
May 2024 (LHR)-HEL via AY
May 2024 HEL-(JFK) via AY
May 2024 (JFK)-EZE via AA
Jun 2024 EZE-(MIA) via AA
Jun 2024 (MIA)-YYZ via AA
Dec 2024 YYZ-(DFW) via AA
Dec 2024 (DFW)-AKL via AA
Dec 2024 AKL-SYD via AA
Jan 2025 SYD-(BNE) via QF
Jan 2025 (BNE)-NRT via QF
Mar 2025 HND-(DOH) via QR
Mar 2025 (DOH)-CAI via QR


(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
tickets redemption availability and good award redemption rates

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
>50k mi
<25 sectors

(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?
Can choose airline/class, travel for both work and pleasure

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
AC is the most flown airline, used to be YYZ -PVG now probably more YYZ-HKG/TPE/PVG and Can-US flights like YYZ-LAX/ORD/MSP, would love to have more YYZ- Europe flights though

(6) What is your home airport?
YYZ

(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?
AA member....160k miles

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
most flown airline is AC

Given your answer to Question #1, I don't see how crediting to any oneworld program other than AAdvantage would make sense for you.

AKL SYD will not be AA, as AA do not fly that route. A QF route. You may have an AA marketed QF operated flight, but unlikely given your ticket (hopefully) issued by QF.
Dedicated AA thread --> https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...age-miles.html
Changing some flights from AA marketed to other airline marketed may help AA ffp earnings. Look in the linked thread above. But not as easy as it once was with (now) different YR YQ carrier surcharges. And airlines (agents) less inclined/skilled in making changes.

Orphan ffp's of little value, if you cannot keep alive (~expiry) and cannot use for awards (balance too low)
Can be harder to get & maintain status. With new ffp's look at status earning term. Some can be calendar year, fixed dates or based on when you join.
More ffp's base ff earnings on revenue.

Given your answer to Question #1 and #7, I don't see how crediting to any oneworld program other than AAdvantage would make sense for you.

The big issue I see is that your itinerary crosses the cutoff of nearly every FFP in OW, so some of your itinerary would be in one year and part in another after the reset, that's of zero use for status unless you already have some other status points in that program to build on.

The only one I know of that still has a flexible year based on your first earn date is QR's. It's pretty easy to get QR Gold (OW Sapphire) on an itinerary like this but would need to check how many QPoints you could get toward the 600 required for QR Platinum (OW Emerald).

Just to be clear, the airlines you've mentioned are the codes you're booked on or the operating airline? In OW, the actual airline codes booked on are the only thing that matters (as long as it's a OW operated flight).

If you're booked on a ton of AA and BA codes as indicated in your itinerary, then AAdvantage is absolutely the worst program to credit to despite what a couple of others have said. I'd actually like to say they're trolling you but they are both very reputable members here.

Sometimes AAdvantage does credit RTW fares as distance, but it seems to be getting rarer and often they'll credit on a revenue basis and you'll be given an absolute pittance (5x-11x based on status) compared to what you'd have gotten on a distance calculation with a different airline's code (Basically for AAdvantage you have to avoid any AA, BA, IB codes and I'd bet within the next year, AY also). As a base member you get a paltry 5x of revenue assigned to that sector, basically consider that something near zero on a RTW.

Without running numbers yet, my initial reaction to your itinerary if this is your only OW flying is probably QR and maybe AS. You wouldn't earn enough in AA to be meaningful with that many AA and BA segments.

felix1224 indicated that his priority is award availability and reasonable redemption rates, not attaining status. If attaining status were his priority, then I might have suggested crediting to Iberia Plus.

Yes, there is uncertainty as to whether the AA and BA segments on this round-the-world ticket would credit to AAdvantage based on cost or distance. But for Economy Class travel from YYZ on oneworld, redeeming Avios rather than AAdvantage miles could require more "miles," would likely have carrier surcharges for travel to Europe or Asia, and would not have the free cancellation offered by AAdvantage awards. All of these are factors to be considered.

As an example, here is what AA wants for YYZ-ORD-HKG (AA/CX) on a random date in April:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...95ff89743e.png

The same itinerary, if available with BA Avios, would cost 60,000 Avios, plus not only the taxes which AA collects, but also the CX carrier surcharges -- which, in turn, would trigger some additional taxes.

One cannot just consider the earn rate for various FFPs without also considering the burn rate, plus carrier surcharges, if any.

Here's another example comparing an AAdvantage redemption with an Avios redemption for YYZ-PAR in Economy:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9d277321ec.png


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ec61fb1d47.png


Although the number of "miles" required is roughly the same, look at the difference in the cash component!

Hello friends,

Haven't had status in OW for over a decade and don't know anything anymore about its various programmes> I hope you can advise.
I have requalified for my Air NZ Gold Elite and frankly am not impressed with their newly planned business seats, which will be out of date before they even launch so I've been booking other airlines for this coming year - including a bunch of flights on Etihad. I can see myself flying NZ less in the coming years and picking up more tickets starting from Asia (with 'stopovers' in NZ).

I find myself this year flying on CX in business from ICN-HKG-AKL return and BKK-HKG-AKL.

This probably won't get me status anywhere but am wondering where I should credit these miles. I used to crdit all OW miles to Qantas by default (have about 20K orphan miles left there). Perhaps a sign up bonus might help boost the earnings?


(1) What is most important to you?
Award bookings in business/first

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
100K but mostly on * about 60% in bus, 10% PE, 20% economy and 10% in first


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

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
complete freedom, including in terms of positioning.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
Auckland to Asia / Europe


(6) What is your home airport?
AKL


(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?
Gold Elite on Air NZ

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Most flown: NZ
preferred: SQ

ICN-HKG-AKL-HKG-ICN in Business would get you oneworld Ruby (lowest tier) status if credited to Iberia. Adding BKK-HKG-AKL one way in Business would not be enough to advance you from Ruby to Sapphire (middle tier), but BKK-HKG-AKL-HKG would. But then you'd have Avios to redeem, which might not be ideal for your future redemptions.

AA has some decent redemption rates between the South Pacific and Asia if you can find award availability on their partners, which include not only oneworld carriers, but also FJ which serves both HKG and NRT via NAN.

Suggest that you check availability on some dummy redemptions at aa.com before making any decisions; no log-in required.

If you regularly fly in Business Class, oneworld status benefits might be of limited value to you.

As a broad generalisation long haul business awards seem harder to get on Oneworld than Star from this part of the world (AU NZ)

Etihad EY is a ff partner of OW airline AA. AA has a revenue based ffp, with distance based for some partner flights. AA now does not have award chart. All dynamic awards on AA.

QF points expire after 18 months on no eigble activity. Are ways without flying to keep alive. All JQ NZ domestic flights earn some QF points. In AU and trans Tasman JQ flights need a bundle to earn QF points. But doubt you are a JQ flyer.
QF has an award chart. QF are revising the ffp which will be announced in a few weeks. These changes tend to favour the airline profits and not the frequent flyer benefits.

The avios ffp's are interesting [BA QR IB IE AY.] Avios, but not status, can be moved easily BA<--->QR. For moving other avios look in the airline web sites and BA forum.
In Australia VA is a ffp of Qatar QR, but looks like you have minimal AU domestic flights.
BA has a reputation for high cash $ award carrier surcharges.
On BA flight you need mid top tier status to be able to select (most) business class seats. Refer to BA forum for the finer details.
QR AKL-DOH-xxx can get you to many EU airports.

For any new ffp look the expiry and if own flight requirement for status. QF & BA (& QR?) have own flight requirement for status. AA does not have own flight requirements. Unsure for others.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...-t-expire.html
https://www.wheretocredit.com/

Not so. While award travel on all-AA metal is now dynamically priced with no award chart, all AAdvantage awards involving at least one flight on a partner carrier (with or without an AA flight on the award) are still fixed price. The redemption charts for various starting regions can be found here:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp

But it does appear that finding AKL-HKG Business awards with AAdvantage miles is challenging. I do see some options with FJ, but they require an overnight at NAN.

Wow, thanks for these fantastic replies mwenenzi and guv1976!
Reward flights can be from anywhere to anywhere, doesn't need to be ex AKL so that might make redemptions a bit easier.
I did not realise AA was an EY partner and if they do not have an AA-metal requirement that might be a decent option. Are there any sign up bonuses that you're aware of? I do have access to a US residential address (if being a US 'resident' makes a difference).

The Citi AAdvantage Platinum card ($95 annual fee, waived the first year) currently has a 75,000-mile sign-up bonus with $3,500 in spend:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...bd437625b4.png

Bonus miles do not earn Loyalty Points, which are what are needed to attain status. But every $1 USD charged to the card earns one Loyalty Point, and at least one redeemable mile. (There are a few bonus categories which earn more redeemable miles.) The card has no foreign-transaction fee. This offer is rumored to be ending mid-April.

Fliar , note that although paid flights on Etihad can earn redeemable miles if credited to AAdvantage, they do not earn AAdvantage Loyalty Points:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...260ae83d54.png

Actually their post originated in another forum where I directed them to here, and in the other forum they were interested in status. Since the itinerary crosses membership years in most programs, QR is one of the few that still have a floating qualification period, it's 12 months from first QPoints. So they need to decide what's priority, lower cost long haul redemption or elite status. But maybe it's possible to get enough LPs in AA's membership year (March to February) to get AA status another way (Canadian resident so Citi card isn't likely an option) but perhaps some other OW tickets.

They do indicate that most flying is YYZ to east Asia. Most CX economy fares don't credit anything to AA, but PE and Business are decent. JL can be quite excellent credited to AA if buying Business, but even discount economy will net something in AA. Unlikely that flying on AA codes is beneficial and going across the Atlantic on normal fares (not RTW), AY is the only one left that still credits on distance but not sure that'll last long. Not sure if AT offers connecting itineraries to Europe or not, but they fly to YUL.

I finally had a chance to check this against QR. It'd be 491 QPoints and about 82,090 Avios. That is QR Gold status (OW Sapphire), you need 600 for QR Platinum (OW Emerald), but the catch is you need 4 segments on QR or 20% of your QPoints earned on QR, you're only at ~13% on this itinerary, so basically you'd need to find a way to get 2 more QR segments and hopefully another 109 QPoints. Maybe if you fly to CAI on QR (revenue ticket)? The down side is that QR economy from YYZ-CAI will only net about 30 QPoints each way, but would get your segments. If you change HEL-JFK to an AA code it doubles your earnings, you go from 30 QPoints on the AY code to 63 QPoints on the AA code and also double the Avios on the segment. That combined with YYZ-CAI and back on QR should get you to within 1-2 flights of Platinum, something you could do on AA segments from home.

Also looks like you could get 3,975 IB tier points for their mid-tier (OW Sapphire), their qualification year is May to April so would work with your itinerary.

With AS your 2024 flights would net about 47,000 EQMs and the total itinerary about 81,000 AS RDMs (Plus Elite bonus once reaching MVP and MVP Gold which I didn't calculate), You'd need to find an additional ~3,000 EQMs for MVP Gold and OW Sapphire.in 2024 since your 2025 flights are after the reset. (January to December qualification period)

The RTW Business Class itinerary booked by felix1224 would easily earn OWS status if credited to Iberia Plus, but would fall well short of OWE. (Iberia Plus does not require any flights on IB to earn status.) If he even wants status, it's not clear whether the incremental benefit from OWS to OWE would be worth much to him. But if he credits to either IB or QR, he's stuck with Avios -- and their carrier surcharges on many routes.

I have not done the calculations, but it would be interesting to see how many AAdvantage Loyalty Points he would earn just from the non-AA-coded/non-BA-coded segments on his RTW itinerary, on the off-chance that the AA- and BA-coded segments would post based on fare and not distance. I'm pretty sure that he would end up with AAdvantage Gold (40,000 LPs) by the end of the trip, but would fall short of AAdvantage Platinum (75,000 LPs).

There are a couple of Canadian credit cards which earn points that can be converted to AAdvantage miles, but I don't know whether such conversions generate any LPs.

I wouldn't even risk it with AAdvantage on this with so much of the bulk of it on AA codes. AS, QR, and IB look much better and good to know no segments required on IB anymore, I couldn't find that info. OW Ruby carries nearly no benefit, so unless they could get to AA Platinum I don't think that would be beneficial despite AAdvantage miles having pretty attractive redemptions in certain regions. They're still likely to get tagged with 5x earnings on the small amount of revenue on the AA and BA segments. The entire base fare of this was only about US$2,500 plus maybe $1000-1500 in YQ, so whatever revenue of that is assigned to the BA and AA segments isn't very many LPs or RDMs on a 5x multiplier.

I agree that if earning oneworld status is important to him, he should credit to Iberia. But if redemption value is more important to him, then I think AAdvantage is the way to go.

absolutely correct and speaking of the status earned on Iberia it would actually work for domestic US Travel since Oro and Platino status on IB is seen as Emerald and Sapphire tier meaning the ability to use Admirals Club and Flagship lounges. My father has done this before on Star Alliance ROP Plus Gold and AA domestic by using his Emerald Status from CX.

thank you all for very interesting and informative discussions over my OTW, I definitely learned quite a bit for potentially maximizing the benefits from this trip and (hopefully) a lot more in the future.

I'm currently leaning towards QR program: as dvs7310 calculated, I'm going to have 82000 Avios and OWS. I should be to find 2 more segments marketed(or operated?) by QR within 12-month period. I will also call QF to see if it's possible to switch that AY marketed HEL-JFK trip to AA. Or there is some other way to do it?

I guess my follow up question would be why AA or IB program would be attractive for my case if they are both revenue based. IB will give me OWS but only less than 20000 Avios, AA will get me OWR and 20k miles unless I have some segments got distance award. Agreed that orphan program(I laughed when I saw this term) is no good and AA program has better redeem ratio, less surcharge and possibly better availability; but 4 times more points in Avios could offset the disadvantages?

This is actually fun, I almost cannot wait to book my next OTW ticket despite I haven't started this one!

IB is certainly a fine recommendation for chasing status, but still not sure how AAdvantage is better than AS Mileage Plan for redemption value in this case, since we have to assume all AA and BA will credit as revenue in AAdvantage.

I just added up the non-AA / BA segments, with cabin bonuses it's 37,000 RDMs & LPs (but some of those are in the 2025 qualification year, we can assume a 40% status bonus on base miles kicks in at some point but would be late in the itinerary). We know that the AA / BA segments won't be more than 20,000 because that's the value of the entire ticket x5, so it might realistically be in the neighborhood of 10,000 RDMs / LPs since just a tad over half of the total flown miles are AA or BA.

If crediting to AS they'd instead be getting 47,000 EQMs on the 2024 portion of the itinerary and ~55,000 RDMs on the 2024 flights, then end up with another 14k EQMs and 25k RDMs on the 2025 flights. In your AA scenario they're just barely squeaking in with AAdvantage Gold (OW Ruby) since the QR flights are after AA's reset (March), with AS they will get MVP Gold and OW Sapphire at 40k. They're getting nearly double the RDMs they'd get with AA. Unfortunately with AS no elite bonus on non-AS flights, where AA does apply it to all OW flights, but I'd rather have OW Sapphire over Ruby any day of the week, especially if the OP is flying economy to Asia frequently.

Normally I'm a big fan of AAdvantage and tend to recommend them a lot, but not on this ticket. Even myself with the 120% EXP bonus (and 11x on revenue) wouldn't buy this ticket with the intention of crediting to AAdvantage.

On the very same day (April 17) that AA is offering YYZ-CDG in Economy for 27K miles and $72, this is what Alaska is offering:


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f29269726a.png

(On the same date, Alaska is offering YYZ-CDG in Business on BA for just 55K miles -- plus $742!)

There are still decent Alaska redemptions to Asia when award space can be found on Korean.

In the end, one just has to decide what one's priority is: elite status or (relatively) cheap redemptions. Travel on AA from YYZ to Europe, the U.S., and maybe even the Caribbean is likely to cost far fewer AA miles than AS miles. Do a few dummy award searches on both the AA and AS websites for the same itinerary and see for yourself.
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