This is similar to a post here but I did not want to invade the posters thread with my issues.

I am currently a member of BA's EC Blue with about 9500 miles and 75 tier points. I live in the States now but visit London at least once a year.

My itinerary mainly consists of flights to/from London on BA in either WT or WT+. WT recently seems to be more likely since I am unable to plan ahead of 21 days and the fare differences are huge if WT+ isn't booked 21 days in advance. Domestic flights in the US are expected to be made in the future by myself and my other half and so transatlantic may not happen as often as it currently does.

However, I'm after my most bang for buck and how I can earn status as a oneworld Sapphire as quickly as possible.

I don't know which oneworld program would suit me best to allow me to earn elite status as quickly as possible

A couple of problems I've noticed:

Zero points for cheapo economy tickets - bad because I fly this class sometimes and will never count toward earning status.

AA/BA - no miles transatlantic - won't earn any miles and I fly to/from London and America a bit.

What program is best for me? The forum has stated QF and Cathay have the best oneworld programs, but I don't know which would suit me best. Please advise.

Cheers in advance and what an excellent site this is.

jedijee

AAdvantage flying AA transatlantic would earn at least triple compared to BAEC (even more if you can earn Platinum status on AA and don't earn BA Silver). If you insist on flying BA in classes that BA doesn't want in the FF plan, then your best bet is CX Asiamiles. However CX charges USD 50 to join their FF status program (Marco Polo). Joining QFF is free for outside of Australia (costs for Australians). For discount travel, AA is by far the best; for premium travel, QF, BA and CX plans all have some advantages but even then AA tends to have the best earn/burn ratio. However if you want to optimize (and it sounds like you do), the only way is to add up the miles you earn for all of your trips in a year, in each of the 8 (soon to be 10) OW plans, and then see what you can redeem as awards from each plan, based on the type of award you want. There are huge differences between plans, and a mile in one plan is not the same as a mile in another plan (e.g. CX miles are worth a lot more than BA miles, for example). And different kind of awards, even very similar ones, have big differences between plans. At least 6 of the existing 8 OW plans have something good about them -- even the less lucrative plans are not all bad, and have some unique benefit. If that benefit matters to you, it might be the best plan for you, even though it is not a good plan generally. For example IB plan offers free parking at MAD airport for Emeralds and free limo service -- a huge benefit for some, and worthless for others (not living in MAD).

Not sure if this will help, but there's some info to be found here: http://www.webflyer.com/programs/rat...m.php?key=AA01