Maximizing Class-of-Service "Currency" Bonus
 

Anyone take a look at maximizing the number of 12,000 miles bonuses for EXP's on AA flights > 3,000 miles. Also applies to some OW carriers when the flights are sold as a code share with an AA flight #.

https://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/aadvantage-currency.jsp

I am intrigued about tweaking current & future RTW itineraries to maximize these bonuses. DFW-HNL/ANC come to mind. Is there any easy way to find code share international flights on other OW carriers?

Thanks guys

I hadn't even considered this on the DONE4 I am working on now... but I'm interested in this topic as well. Does the language simply mean that if there is an AA flight number (when operated by US, BA, IB, AY, QF, JL), then it will get the bonus and if there is NOT an AA flight number, then no bonus?

Looking at my current itinerary, it appears I may be able to get 20-30k extra RDM than I thought.

Maximizing 3,000 Mile AA & AA-Codeshare Flights
 

That appears correct. My experience this year:
AA 61 MIA-NRT I got 12,000 mile CB (currency bonus)
AA 8411 (operated by JL) NRT-BKK I got 1,000 mile CB
JL 708 BKK-NRT NO CB

I can't see any easy way to find AA codeshare flights going through the OneWorld Timetables offline program.

For non ex-USA based RTW... maximizing via North America, DFW-ANC appears to be just over the 3000 mile mark. So throwing in a roundtrip DFW-ANC-DFW while in North American would seem to bag an ExPlat an extra 24K miles.

I've been crafting an ex-JNB DONEx to maximise this bonus and also for the first time I've been digging deep into fuel surcharges based on lots of ITA lookups (quite a few eye openers). So far I have this as the backbone:

JNB-LHR-DXB-xLHR-LAX-GRU-LAX-JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-xNRT-CGK-HKG-JNB for 9 x 12k bonus with two segments spare + about 59k flown miles so about 250k RDMs.

A few things to note:
* You can fly JNB-xLHR-LAX on an AA codeshare BA metal for the JNB-xLAX segment which adds a 12k bonus if you don't want to stop in Europe
* A DONE5 is only about $500 + charges more than a DONE4 (ex JNB). Adding Australia costs a lot in charges but South America has virtually 0 charges: you get about 36k miles for throwing in LAX-GRU-LAX [(12 + 6) x 2].
* LAX-JFK (or SFO-JFK or their reverse) gets you a 12k bonus despite being under 3k miles
* DFW-xNRT-CGK is charges efficient: only $56 in YQ vs $173 + $105 with a stop in NRT or $272 for DFW-xNRT-SIN. NOTE: JL's fuel surcharges automatically vary a lot with fuel prices so that used to be an even bigger difference.
* Cathay are super low on charges so without the 12k bonus on offer I'd fly DFW-HKG and stopover in HKG before flying wherever I want (DFW-xHKG-SIN has the same $272 YQ).

I've been using ITA to confirm AA code shares (and/or YQ): one way with an AA+ routing code, priced in USD.

Here's an itinerary I'm working on to maximize the bonus, too.

JNB-DOH-BKK-NRT-HKG-NRT-JFK-LAX-DFW-ANC-DFW-SEA-LAX-LHR-MCT-LHR-DOH-JNB

It's valid on the OWE tool. While I'd love to be in F, there are so few segments with F availability that it really doesn't seem worth it. Any ideas to increase 1) total earned miles, 2) F segments or 3) AA segments over 3K miles will be welcome. In either J or F, I should get the 12K bonus on NRT-JFK, JFK-LAX, DFW-ANC, ANC-DFW and LAX-LHR, so a total of 60K from that bonus.

There is no F, but,
NRT-CMB-NRT (on UL) is much longer than NRT-HKG-NRT
Or
You may consider AA8412/8413(NRT-SIN/SIN-NRT, >3000miles segements).

Can you get flights like this under the AA numbers without their being married to AA over-water segments?

For this particular case, ExpertFlyer shows AA8432/8413 for simple NRT-SIN-NRT seach specifing AA.

A simple NRT-CGK-NRT search (AA only) returns AA8499/AA8497,AA8498

So, probably, you can book without a connecting AA flight.

Is that reliable? A quick check and I couldn't see an AA marketed flight for NRT-SIN-NRT on ITA (searching for a 2-9 day trip starting in April).

Also: HKG-SIN-HKG showed up as AA marketed in expert flyer but there was consistently no D class availability.

You have more than 16 segments so it's not a valid itin.

FYI: if you you do LAX-xLHR-MCT-LHR instead of LAX-LHR-MCT-LHR then the xLHR-MCT can be an AA codeshare (plus you'll save some taxes: but you won't get that first stop in London of course).

If you're happy to skip Doha at the start, JNB-HKG-BKK is slightly more miles and I believe ~$250 less in YQ.

The main thing I'm getting better at is not chasing RDMs that aren't worth an increase in YQ/charges which the routing adjustment brings in. This is giving me more segments to play with and thus make it possible to do things like pay an extra ~$600 ($500 in the base fare, $100 in additional taxes) to add LAX-GRU-LAX (so DONE5 instead of DONE4) and with it get ~60k RDMs (2 x 12k bonus + ~12k flown in D)

Yeah, I see. don't know how that happened; it was 16 when I first constructed it. Must have been some of the changes I made along the way. OK, I'll have to rework that down to 16.

Edited to add: Done. Changed DFW-SEA-LAX to DFW-LAX.


Great idea!! I don't need that stop.


Hmmm. I did it that way to bring the itinerary within §3.2.2, as in Africa-Middle East (transfer)-Asia (stop)-N.A. (stop)-Europe-Middle East-Africa.

If I skip DOH at the start, then I'm stuck with §3.2.3, which means no flown sectors between Europe and M.E.; so I'd have to fly N.A.-M.E. at the end, right? That seems to cost me the 12K bonus on my TATL (which I would have done with BA or AA) as well as the TATL F cabin (no TATL F on QR) if I try to do this in F.

There are far greater minds on FT at this than mine, -- thank you for continued assistance!!

Your concern is probably right.
EF shows NRT-SIN-NRT, NRT-CGK-NRT, but only J and Y buckets are available.
Then, when searching LAX-SIN, D buckets availablility appears for NRT-SIN segment.

If you fly JNB-HKG-BKK then you haven't touched the continent of Europe/Middle East at all and you can enter and leave it how you will. I.e. LAX-xLHR-MCT-LHR-JNB is no problem.

You shouldn't be able to do LHR-MCT-LHR-DOH as that's 3 flights between the UK and the middle east: you are limited to 2.

If you've not played with it much, http://www.slfft.org/mm/award.htm is incredibly useful (it's not 100% but it's very close). There's always so much more to learn ;). Just now I uncovered that it's only about $75 in taxes and YQ to fly GRU-xJFK-xNRT-SIN