I have been a happy AA Platinum but discouraged with partner limitations on earning miles.
- can't earn miles transatlantic on BA
- earn measly 30% on Iberia
- certain fares don't earn miles- ie. Cathay Pacific

Which airline program in OneWorld can I fly that offers the best reciprocity among all of the partners? Most important for me is:
- earn miles on both AA and BA transatlantic
- earn miles on all Cathaty Pacific fares
- international lounge access > 50k year miles
- bonus if also earned AA domestic upgrades

Is my wishlist too extravegant? I just want to fly and not have to worry about route or fare limits.

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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

Have you considered LanPass/LanChile ?

Your miles are accrued AA/BA/QF, etc
50Kmiles are enough to get access to OW lounges

Qantas are revamping their program... might be worth take a look...

But then... if you fly most AA, it's probably better (my opinion) to keep the AAdvantage... Miles just keep multiplying, that is a 10.000 mile journey appears in your statement as 30.000 (10K flown, 10K bonus, 10K AA flown).

Let me know what your final decision is

Owing to a lack of experience, I can't really give you any good advice, worldbanker, but the "perfect" program characteristics you described matched perfectly with CP's old program, which alas is long gone.

FewMiles..

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FlyerTalkers' Resources on the Web: http://home.webflyer.com/fewmiles/
Unofficial Guide to AAdvantage: http://home.webflyer.com/fewmiles/AA/
Unofficial oneworld Info Desk: http://home.webflyer.com/fewmiles/oneworld/

Well, sometimes we may wander but we alwasy stick to the tried and true. I only 300k to become 1 million miler on AA so I guess I should stay.

You are right about the CP program, I know what I was asking for was something familiar. With CP gone, this is why Cathay Pacific still allows Canadian residents to accrue miles.

Never been to Chile yet so I might stick with AA for now. I have however heard good things about the program but it has been my experience that being elite on a US carrier carries more weight and has better service whether or not flying host airline.

I like the AA program because it's so much easier to redeem points and have all kinds of bonuses that can end up making the program pretty lucrative if you pay attention.

In HKG, I can book and ticket an "award ticket" on CX for sameday travel through AA, something that leaves my Marco Polo Club colleagues speechless!

i only know about aa/ba/cx,

and i am ermald with all except aa, and now switching to aa as my primary one, though i will continue to fly ba transtaltantic.
my strategy now is put all BA transatlantic and intra-Europe in BA, and all non-BA miles into AA. i believe i can make AA EXPLT and still keep BA Silver (i already re-qualified for BA GOLD -- so no worry for another 24 months, but i continue to fly BA for transatlantic as you can see why, even though i found the BA miles extremely useless for me since i live in Boston -- i cannot issue CX award ticket, so i am wasting 80k miles to fly Biz to Europe, same amount you needed to fly from West Coast).

it seems aa is the best program. unless, LA/AY/etc can beat it.

BA: you can solve the atlantic problem by avoiding AA totally, but you wont have double mile flying cx, and BAEC in NA service is quite terrible IMHO. also, unless u r live in CX/BA port, it is very hard to issue award tickets from there.

the best compromise is perhaps to keep AA PLT plus BA Silver, if you have enough mile/segments

CX: the most stingy mileage award in OW, though they really serve you well.

Yes, AA has been there for me for last minute awards and seems to have availability for flights when others are lacking. What I have figured out is that AA has best promotions, ie. double miles or 5-10-15k to Europe, etc.

I also like the idea of BA Silver for transatlantic and possibly intra-European. What I was doing until recently was depositing my miles from BA transatlantic into my America West account until I had enough to use and close down my orphan miles there.

I have heard great things about CX service but also that they were "too efficient" as friend puts it instead of saying stingy on awards and miles earned. AA also has great awards on CX in Spring at great discounts.




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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

How does 10,000 flown miles equal 30,000 miles? I know of platinum 100% bonus to get to 20,000, but how do you get the other 10,000?

Well, I see we are both "married to miles"

30,000 involves 10k base miles + 10k Platinum bonus + 10k for double mile bonus for specific routes. Others have done this flying r/t to Argentina on AA. I got this bonus flying FinnAir in April.

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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

Hey worldbanker, as far as I can tell no OW program will meet all your criteria. Obviously both BA and AA are ruled out if you want earn miles on both AA and BA transatlantic. Have you looked into AY as an alternative? They use km's instead of miles and I think 120.000 km will give you their Gold level for 2 yrs and int. lounge acces (there is still Platinum above Gold). You also earn double km's for business class and triple for first on all AY partner airlines. If you have a look at this link you'll see which airlines and fares give you km's http://www.finnair.com/plus/news/ind...bookingclasses (note that only OW airlines km's count towards elite status).

don't forget 30000 miles can also equal

10000 base
10000 100% bonus
10000 conversion of 4x AA upgrades at 2500 miles each

That is one of the better benefits of AA (besides VIP2/OW) as opposed to other OW... especially if you live outside the US or fly mostly Y/B fares

yes, AA is really 3x miles. BEFORE any bonus. e.g. if you fly to london now, you get 4x!