Onefreeman,

I dont think the transfer to hilton is the best use of those miles, AA-HHonors is a 1 for 1 exchange. Check if BA is in teh reward exchange, if it is it would make more since to put the nmiles there. In any case, if you are flying back and forth that much you will get serious miles, so why not just use them as flight awards? the other thing to consider, buy your first ticket as a one way (aka a RT ticket that you throw away half of) ticket to bangkok (or singapore--ask celestar this point) and start all your oneworld trips from bkk as the price should be much better (BA/QF flights to europe stop in bkk anyway (cx in hongkong)... so if you didnt want to actually stop in bkk/sin/hkg, just have the next one "start" on the flight continuing on to europe that you just arrived on...

I dont think UA or AA treat their elites even 1K's so great, so why not just take the AA and enjoy until it expires. Anyone recommend he go into CP's program over aa? i dont know enough on that one to comment.

tg

Celestar -- I agree with you on elite qualification for CX but for QF "it depends". AA Gold/Platinum is easier to attain on AA than the equivalents on QF (because AA base it purely on miles). However, QF Gold is far easier to attain than AA Executive Platinum IF most of your travel is in first/business. For something to do (yep, I was real bored at the time), I looked at my travel patterns for the year and compared when I would have qualified or requalified in the top tiers of AA, BA & QF. BA came first by 10 flights, QF second by 5 then AA. Caveat -- all of my flights at that point were in Business or First. What good would it do to have a QF FF account? Well, if onefreeman is going to do a lot of travel to Australia then he may find it easier to get award tickets which are within Asia-Pac as opposed to trying to get them with AA (I'm sure there are lot's of places you want to check out downunder onefreeman, right? ).

tummyg raises an interesting point regarding CP's program. It seems to be the easiest of all to get top-tier in, and even less rigourous for requalification. The added bonus is BA transatlantic flights are eligible for mileage and status accural. So maybe CP is the way to go????

I still think the airlines based in Canada are the way to go based on program features. However, Canadian Airline's financial situation has been the problem. If you are using up your miles fairly quickly then it is OK. If not, then they become a liability unless you believe the company is invincible.

CP and AA upgrades and awards seem virtually interchangeable plus you get free lounge access etc. as a CP elite. Not quite as good as AC's program in the Star Alliance but an impressive one nonetheless.

Any (educated) guesses on what will happen to Canadian Plus if CP sinks? My new gold card says I've been a member since 1990, that was when I flew Intair on the first Saturday they offered YYZ-YOW. Later CP picked them up.

If CP goes down, will AC offer to match status and points? I assume that at least AA would be after those flyers, so AC might be well advised to make that offer, perhaps with a signed statement that AA hadn't already been given the points.

Or will they be in such a good position that it won't matter?

[maybe replies should go to a new thread in Canadian]

andrew

If you're worried about CP look at the Frequent Flyer web site for details of their insurance scheme.

I've been a member since it looked like TWA was on the way out.