Platinum Challenge dilemma!
 

Having finalised my LONE5 this morning (and paid for it), I was feeling pretty smug right up until the point where I got home and started reading about the Platinum Challenge .. and realised I could probably have lounge access for most of the trip if I'd realised earlier and chosen destinations accordingly. So my dilemma is as follows: I want to achieve Platinum as quickly as possible, preferably using my existing routing but changing it if it helps substantially (and paying the associated penalty). Stops need to remain the same. The current routing is ...

SYD-xJNB-CPT-xJNB-xMAD-GRX//VLC-xMAD-ARN-xHEL-xJFK-xLIM-CUZ-xLIM-SCL-ARI//LPB-xMIA-WAS-JFK-SYD

Anyone got any brilliant ideas ? :)

If you shake the bank real hard and a DONEx falls out, that would be an enormous help in accumulating miles for your challenge or whatever else. And depending on how long you have for your journey, 5 continents seems a bit inefficient - you're paying extra and nonetheless limited to 20 segments. Just comments - everyone has different travel goals.

Hard to do much improving without drastic surgery to your itinerary. Basically, unless you start your trip by flying LA, or AA, you are not going to make the plat challenge until the latter part of your trip.

Haha, it's a combined work-holiday trip so I'm kind of constrained as to some of the destinations (hence the inefficiency), but at least I'm not paying for it ;)

One idea I've been mulling over is taking an award flight to AKL and flying LAN in J AKL-SYD for $266 .. gets 2518 QPs, and if I can convince the person I'm travelling with to split the cost (since we'd both get lounge access) then that might work. Otherwise possibly some other kind of random QF J flight, if I can find something cost-efficient.

Are you doing direct HEL-JFK on AY? L ticket on AY will only earn you 0.5 EQP. You may want to consider routing through AA european gateways and fly transatlantic on AA metal (remember that PLT challenge is based on EQP, not EQM). This will give you between 3500-4000 EQP, allowing you to complete the challenge sooner and start earning the 100% bonus miles on your latin american segments. Hope this helps!

Obviusly you want to book as many legs as possible as AA codeshares to increase your AAdvantage earnings. You also have 2 more sectors available, so could fly JFK-SJU-LAX-LIM for example. But L is not a good way to earn status, which is the point of the challenge, so probably you are on the right track and better off to earn it with flights ahead of your LONE5 trip. Also you need to get the physical Platinum card for lounge access in many of your destinations, which might be hard to do once you are travelling.

If you are prepared to pay the AUD600 for the World Traveller Plus upgrade from ZA to UK, then you could change it to CPT-LHR-MAD rather than CPT-JNB-MAD and upgrade the CPT-LHR flight

Your qpoint /miles earning for these flights will be
50% of 5621 for the SYD-JNB = 2811 qpoints and miles for QF
for CPT-LHR will earn 150% of 6862 qpoints = 10,293
The mileage earning will be 210% of 6862 = 14,411 ( base of 6862 plus 10% WT+ bonus plus 100% bonus for completing the challenge )

Once these 2 flights have credited, you will have AA Platinum

To help your mileage earning, you might also like to consider changing ARN-HEL-JFK-LIM to be ARN-LHR-JFK-LIM using AA codeshare on ARN-LHR , AA to JFK and then LA to LIM

You may also need to purchase 1 sector within Europe since you would exceed 4, but pick a cheap sector and it wont cost much. The WT+ upgrade is a good way to go imo since (a) it is much more pleasant way to fly than in economy imo and (b) will allow you to earn 210% mileage for the flight rather than the 25% qpoints and miles which you would earn in BA economy

Dave

I thought about that too. Are you certain the additional payment for the WT- to WT+ "upgrade" translates as q-points? What fare does it book into - W?

100% certain, it books into T class rather than L class and T class is listed on the AA site as a 1.5 qpoint fare

I have used this for a number of people doing "challenges" , so no issue at all

Dave

So net cost to the OP is the reissue fee + LHR fees + the WT+ "upgrade" payment + the cost of surface connection to Granada from some OW airport served from London (SVQ probably closest.) The benefits are (a) more comfortable flight JNB-LHR, (b) earlier qualifying for Plat hence double miles, and (c) maybe some lounge access provided a Plat card or facsimile can be obtained during the trip. Pretty simple benefit:cost calculation.

One other benefit might be the freeing up of an additional segment, in the event the original CPT-JNB flight was only to connect to IB. Otherwise the OP could take CPT-LHR and use the extra ticket somewhere where the additional miles and q-points would count for more, for instance JFK-SFO or JFK-LAX before connecting to SYD.

Actually, given that HEL and JFK (1) are just transit stops anyway, more q-points could be harvested by going VLC-xMAD-ARN-xLHR-xLAX-LIM.

The annoying thing is that I originally planned this trip so as to maximise QF FF points (ie. avoiding AA and BA) and for plat challenge I really need lots of AA legs, sigh ;)

I'm only really interested in getting the Plat as quickly as possible, I have 120k FF points so I'd prefer to concentrate on those once I have Plat. The CPT-LHR in WT+ is an interesting idea but might prove a little bit expensive, it looks like roughly an additional AUD1000 all up.

I would make it about AUD839 all up if you have to buy a MAD-GRX if you get it done before the ticket is issued or you could use 12,000 FF miles and get an award flight for one of the short european hops.. that would bring the cash cost to AUD600 ish

Once you have Platinum, I would suggest concentrating on collecting to AA since the points there will be worth a lot more to you than in QF., e.g. 120k points in AA is enough for a business class round trip from SYD-LHR on QF whilst 120k QF points will not even get you an economy one

Dave

The ticket had to be issued yesterday because I fly out in 21 days, just to add another painful twist of the knife. My travelling partner isn't thrilled at the prospect of (yet more) routing changes so I think the most likely solution will be some kind of MR before the RTW trip. The best I've found thus far (from the MR forum) is doing SYD-SIN-SYD on BA in WT+, which nets upward of 11k QPs and hence Plat before I leave, which would be a bonus .. price tag is ~AUD1200 though.

I hadn't realised quite how ridiculous the QF points situation was compared to AA .. does AA have a similar oneworld award to QF (140,000 points for 35,000 mile rtw trip in economy)? And if so can you transfer points between the two FFPs?

Yes - also 140,000 miles up to 35,000 miles ( http://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/Vi...artnersContent ).

And no - at least not whilst retaining more than a small fraction of their value.

Alright so this sounds too good to be true. Supposing I do this SYD-SIN-SYD leg on WT+ .. SYD-SIN is 3915 miles so outbound that's 5873 QPs, then inbound another 5873 but you get your 100% elite status bonus on top of that so that's a grand total of 17619 QPs? Which obviously gets me the plat status.

Now I take my LONE5 as above, using AA codeshares on juicy segments like HEL-JFK and JFK-SYD, which nets me about another 64,000 QPs. Finally I'll be taking another SYD-LAX flight later in the year, which assuming I use AA codeshare gives me about an additional 30,000 QPs in economy, and thus EXP status.

I get EXP in October sometime, and it therefore expires on Feb 29, 2008. Even if I don't take any AA flights in 2007, my EXP gets downgraded to Plat until Feb 28, 2009. So I have oneworld Emerald/Sapphire effectively for 3 years.

What's the catch?

The catch is that your math is incorrect. Bonus miles do not count towards the q-point calculation. Also, some fares only give 50% q-points.

Essentially, the rule of thumb is that first, business, world traveler plus get 1.5 q-point per mile flown. Economy depends on your fare class and the airline. L on AA gets one point per mile flown, but can be less on the other airlines.

So SYD-SIN-SYD would get 11721 q-points (7814 x 1.5). Your itinerary as it stands would get you 37306 q-points because IB and AY only give 50% for L fares. Actual miles received will be even lower. Then your flight to LAX would get you 14976 q-points, assuming you bought it in an appropriate fare class.

That brings your total to 64003. You still have a ways to go for exec plat.

The AA site tells me that IB flights in L give the measly total of 15% QPs. But if I am on the AA codeshares for HEL-JFK and JFK-SYD, shouldn't I earn the full amount of points in L? In any case if I'm just getting double miles, not double QPs, then I don't stand much chance of EXP, although it looks like Platinum for two years should be okay.

What's this 100% elite status bonus? I don't think there is such a thing when thinking about q-points. AFAIK, your q-point calculation is based strictly on your class of service.

In the L fare basis, you will receive 30% mileage and .50 q-points per mile received. Q points and miles are not the same. So lets say that you take the JNB-MAD flight. The flight is about 5000 miles long. For the flight, you will receive 30% of miles flown, or about 1500. You will receive .5 q-points per mile earned, or about 750 q-points.

I agree it would be a challenge to get to Executive Platinum and you will probably have to settle for Platinum. The most feasible way to do so would be to get a business class ticket as someone else mentioned.

deleted.

I'll stand corrected, but I think the miles come first: Assuming no status:

5000 miles flown in L booking class on IB @ 30% = ~1666 miles earned
Elite Qualifying Points earned = 1666 miles x 50% = ~833 points

I think the key is EQP "per miles earned", rather than "per miles flown". Hence 15%.

It's even worse than that. From the text right above the table on aa.com:
(My emphasis.)

Then below on the table it shows "L" earning 0.5 q-points per mile earned.

Thus 125 x 0.5 = 63 (I guess) points per flight, regardless of length for intra-Spain. 300 Q-pts minimum for international flights to/from Spain, 500 earned miles thus 250 q-pts to the Canaries. Sucky.

There is a 500 q-point & q-mile per segment minimum, regardless of the number of redeemable miles you earn. I know this for a fact on BA where a short hop in discount economy earns you 125 redeemable miles but 500 q-points and 500 q-miles. I suspect that this is also the case on other miles-earning OW flights (i.e. IB economy but not CX economy < H). I'm not sure about the 125 mile specials within the Canaries, but I would suspect that this is the case even there.

Michael

If you're leaving on your RTW within 3 weeks, there is no chance that you'll be able to complete the SYD-SIN-SYD flights (assuming the ticket you found has some advance purchase requirement), get them posted to your AA account, and receive your AA plat card in Australia before you leave for your RTW trip. Without the card, you will have a very difficult time getting the OW benefits.

Don't rely on this. I have had definate evidence to the contrary on this. Recently, I put parent on Platinum Challenge and she flew
LCY-FRA, FRA-SIN, SIN-MEL with LCY-FRA being discount economy BA and FRA-MEL in business clas

With a 500 qpoint earning , the FRA-SIN would have qualified her, however it wasnt till SIN-MEL that it clocked over. When I contacted AA about this, they told me that the system calculated it as min 125, not 500 and so the challenge was not completed

Do also note, that there seems to be nothing these days on the AA site that states a min qpoint earning

Dave

You need not stand corrected; you are completely correct, the earning on IB is 15%

Dave

Mea culpa, I forgot about the earn versus flown. Corrected.

If you fly on an AA flight number you will earn qpoints and miles as per AA earnings. As an AA Platinum you would be well worth taking the AA flight number on JFK-SYD to get 9950 * 2 miles = 19,900 miles and 9950 qpoints vs getting 9950/2 * 2 = 9950 miles and 4,950 qpoints if booked on the QF flight number

Dave

The flight that completes the Platinum challenge earns a 50% status bonus (instead of the normal 100%) on the premise that Platinum status only applied at the endpoint and not the origination.

The flight that completes the challenge earns a bonus as if it was taken as a platinum member

If a white card member completes the challenge , that flight earns a 100% Platinum Challenge bonus
If a Gold member completes the challenge , then a 75% Platinum Challenge bonus will be applied ( since 25% has already been credited due to Gold status )

Example 1 - Gold member

12/16/05 QANTAS AIRWAYS 388 J SIN MEL 3,744 1,872 5,616
12/16/05 PLT CHALLENGE BONUS-GLD MEMBER 0 2,808 2,808

Base mileage was 3744
COS bonus was 25% = 936
Gold bonus was 25% = 936

Platinum Challenge bonus was 2808 ( 75% of the base mileage ) ensuring that a total status bonus for the flight was 100% (2808 + 936 = 3744)

Example 2 - Base member

01/04/06 QANTAS AIRWAYS 2 Y LHR SYD 10,349 0 10,349
01/04/06 PLT CHALLENGE BONUS-REG MEMBER 0 10,349 10,349

As can be seen the base mileage was 10,349 and a bonus of 100% was awarded

Dave

Hmm, perhaps AA have recently "fixed" their computer. The last time I paid attention to this was in the summer. A feeler on the AA forum to see what others' experiences are may be in order.

Any idea how many q-miles these flights earned (125 or 500)? It can be quite hard to reconstruct, though...

Michael

While this is a fascinating conversation, you never said why you want OneWorld Emerald/Sapphire status for 3 years. From the above comment, I'm guessing it may not be for the bonus miles on AA. Perhaps if you told us, there would be some better/cheaper way to get the same benefits.