Hello:

I have moved to Bangkok for the forseeable future. I am a die hard one world member, American Airlines Executive Platinum for the past 5 years and a Platinum for life member.

Question: Should I consider leaving the American Airlines program and Joining Marco Polo at Cathay or JAL? I rarely fly AA anymore and am on Cathay more then ever.

I would consider switching alliances to Star Alliance but I dislike Thai.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

From my experience of moving from Japan to Canada, I recommend national career of your residence. More earning oppotunities through daily expenditure, and more opportunities to explore the country where you live (Hope you like Thailand, even if not TG). If you have OW status, try status match.

Having said that, if you still miss OW:

Q1. Where will you be flying from BKK most often?
If mainly within Asia, then CX should be the only option.
If still transpac, then JL, CX, or AA.

Q2. On which airlines and to which destination would you redeem your miles?
In this sense AA or other European carriers might work as well.

Just note that for economy travel on CX, only YBH buckets accrue miles on AAdvantage.

It depends where you are flying to - but if it is lots of inta-asia flights then you will be hard pressed to find a better airline than Cathay for both looking after it's members and all Emeralds within One World. So you don't necessarily need to change program to get many of the benefits.

Loads from Bangkok either to Singapore or to Hong Kong are often over booked and when I was doing both routes regularly last year I was constantly UG to First when available from business - even though my status was with other OW airlines - Cathay Pacific^^^

Emerald with Cathay is difficult to initially get as each time you reach a new level your miles for the year revert back to zero - so it may be worth keeping Emerald with another airline and moving up gradually with Cathay.

The other advantage of sticking with OW from BKK is, CX is IMHO much more competative in pricing from BKK, where it is competing against several Star Alliance airlines and particularly Thai - than it is from Hong Kong where it is usually preaching to the converted.

This is important if OP is considering staying with AA in order to earn then redeem miles on AA and OW partners. It would be crazy to stick with AA while flying CX discount economy so let's assume that's not the case. Since OP has lifetime OW Sapphire already and is flying CX all the time, seems like it makes the most sense to join the CX program. He/she will enjoy OW Sapphire benefits permanently up until the time he/she surpasses that level with CX.

If OP is flying premium CX cabins or coach with YBH fares, then I guess it depends more on the specifics of the CX program and the benefits it provides exclusively to its members over and above when OP will get with AA EXP or PLT.

I would stay with AA because you will get the majority of your existing benefits with the other OW carriers in the region anyway. No need to change.

However, I personally would consider moving some of your flying over to *A. TG as the national carrier will offer you the greatest convenience and have great lounges etc. in BKK and HKG. I am not a big fan of TG either, but they really have improved their service and the seats are now very good on many of their AC.
Look at the *A forum where you will find many threads on which *A FFP to join. Most probably you will not join the TG program but join one of the better ones (LH, BMI, UA etc.)

OP can potentially call MPC and get a status match to possibly Gold if he flies CX a lot already. That will accelerate the path to Diamond. Gold/Diamond can have seat guarantee, something I found most useful.

Unrelated to the question, but OP may be interested in the EK-UA rtw offering - iirc, about USD5500 ex-BKK in first class. Strong limitations on routing and aircraft (Emirates seems to make BA look like Santa Claus when it comes to handing out premium seats on premium routes, even though their best seating is ho-hum) so it's not as great a deal as it seems.

I would go with CX. In the last year or so, I've done a lot more flying on CX in mix of J and Y and less on AA, as I maybe relocating to BKK myself.

As one of the previous post, it is difficult to get Emerald your first year. If you plan on doing a lot of intra-Asian travel, it's better to bank your miles with MPC as you have more fare options to accumulate your miles.

Your non-stop options out to BKK on CX aren't bad; SIN, HKG, CMB (if and when it comes back online), DXB, BOM, and KHI.

As far as status match, do write to them. I actually got one from them. I showed them my past travels and future bookings with them. They only gave me Silver, but it's better than nothing.