In my experience, this 100% bonus (as well as credit towards "earned upgrades" -- ultimately good for another 25% bonus) applies to all flights on AA, on oneworld carriers, or on Alaska Airlines (especially handy for west coast connections). So this is a major bonus (and, as I recall, a major differentiation between AA's partnership with oneworld and UA's with Star... though you should check this if it matters to you).

GB I think that is a recommendable action to take. I even think that Business Traveller is the better strategy, because it entails bad publicity for CX and thus more pressure. Letter to the CEO/Chairman tend to get ignored in CX's antiquated company hierarchy. Anything I can do to help?

Christep - whatever happened to loyalty? Which airline do you LIKE to fly? As an ardent CX flyer, I would like to be recognized by CX as a CX-flying oneworld member, entitling me to rave or ***** about treatment I receive from MY airline. I don't like flying AA and avoid them whenever I can - I wouldn't join their FF program even if it offered three times the perks. In other words: think about how you feel when you miss out on an upgrade because you are AAEXP and not MPC Diamond anymore - if you can live with that, then you may as well desert :-)

To the above list of pros and cons I would like to add this: if CX is your PREFERRED carrier, then keep your loyalty there.

Above said with tongue-in-cheek and fully in support of changes to the MPC club which are LONG overdue!

I'm with you on all of this except that I get so few upgrades (<10% Y-J, more or less never J-F) that I'm not really losing much. However, I am very loyal to CX the airline, just not to their FF scheme. Moving to AAdvantage will change my flying patterns very little and will earn me twice the value of awards.

Decision time is approaching - I have to decide before Saturday when I'm off to Delhi... (in J on a ropey old 330, so no upgrade option there).

I'm still hesitating between staying with MPC and doing an alternate year strategy (which means this would be the year to get my AA to EXP and let my CX fall to Gold).

why not just try out AA for this year.

if u decide to move back (or alternate) next year, u r still MPO gold and do not need to work your way up in CX.

Diamond members who want me to write a letter to CX MPO on their behalf or assist in a joint letter, please email me at [email protected]

I think the letter to the editor at Business Traveller Asia-Pacific edition is good too but haveto word it in such a way so that the content does not get edited much. (BT tends to do that a lot!)

As a measly Gold member I shall most certainly refrain from perusing abovementioned e-mail or offer any suggestions :-(

I really wish CX go a la SQ's PPS...

Then everyone would credit all the flights for award miles to AA's program and loyalty credit to CX.

CX doesn't seem to be so keen on giving award miles anyway. Why don't they just track loyalty, regardless of which program award miles are accrued?

According BP888, one cannot use AA miles for CX upgrades after August 2003, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum71/HTML/014127.html
This announcement surely has an impact on this discussion!

well, christep, what's your decision?

Well, particularly in light of the AA withdrawal on of upgrades on CX (which I had been looking forward to using), I decided simply to stick with CX for this year at least. I am writing off about 100K AA miles by doing so, and also letting my Plat Challenge run go to waste. But a few regional business trips on CX in discount econmoy now look likely, so I could only put them on AsiaMiles anyway.

But I am still not sure (as I sit on the end of a painfully slow internet connection in the Sheraton Delhi, not having realised in advance that today was India's national day and therefore everything is shut) that I made the right decision.

for what it's worth, I think you have

I pumped in over 50,000 CX flight miles into MPC, flying I don't know how many segments in Dec. and Jan. The MPC account balance, naturally, grew only by 50,000 miles. (I could have gotten at least double the miles had I put them into my AA account.)

Thereafter, I credited just one CX long-haul (AKL-HKG) and could get easily over 11,352 miles (including bonus miles).

I felt a bit like stupid. But to me, the guaranteed seat feature is important. I guess it is a 'sacrifice' that I had to make.

thanks to your post, christep, i have actually taken some time over Chinese New Year to check out AA's program. The differences are quite stunning. There must be thousands of AA elites waiting to be upgraded or use their SWUs on every flight -- which kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it? I am really not surprised that AA members complain about lack of recognition on CX flights.

Unless all oneworld carriers make it equally hard to become top tier, these issues won't go away. So are we in favor or a oneworld club membership, or will that make it even worse?

That's not my experience. I've found it easy enough to use VIPOWs on most flights when booked a reasonable amount of time in advance (~30+ days, typically).