Advise please: Where to move [AA, BA?] when I hit Life Gold
 

Hi all.

Would really appreciate your opinions on where to move my FF earnings to when I hit QF FF Life Gold.

I am decided that I want to move - I want the life status that will come with LG and will stick with QF FF till I get it, but then I wanna move to a prog. where my miles actually are worth something and where it does not cost an arm and a leg to redeem them.

I am UK based, and do most of my flying on BA - currently I fly lots in long haul Y and Y+, quite a bit of (UK-Europe) short-haul J (at least 6 or 7 returns a year), plus at least 2 or 3 long-haul J a year (F very occasionally).

My key interest/priority when I move is mile burn ratio, and reducing costs (taxes/fines) involved in using the miles: however things like getting upgraded more etc are also important, so may also be a part of my decision making process if one option is vastly better in that regard than another.

I am probably still 3 years away from hitting LG, but need to basically make a choice now as I am going to get a new (UK) credit card and will choose the one (i.e. an AA or a BA one) that I will want to be building miles up in, in advance of my move in a few years.

I have of course read at length many of the Threads etc on this Forum and others (for e.g. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qanta...advantage.html, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/11526155-post6.html, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qanta...ly-qantas.html, etc), and know - and agree with the general consensus - that miles are worth much more, are earned more easily, and cost less to use in the AA prog. On these point alone I have always assumed that AA would be the obvious choice.

But what I am wondering is whether I have missed anything complelling as to why in my specific situation AA may not be the way to go, and that BA may be a better. I do afterall fly BA a LOT, and AA only once or twice a year.

If most of my flying is on BA would I be mad to not move to BAEC? Or do the general benefits of the AA prog. (or the lack of many benefits in the BA prog.) in effect mean that AA is the only way to go? Is there anything I would get in BAEC (as say a Silver FF) that would mean I should go with them instead?

Your comments/advise/observations/experiences appreciated as ever ! ^

H

Look no further than AA.

I've also been thinking of the question you propose and will probably switch to AA. Will be a couple more years till I hit LTG but after that AA seems to be the program to switch to.

I'm still deciding. WP benefits are important to me and I need to do the sums to see if EXP is attainable (and retainable) with my travel patterns.

Are BA still excluding Oz based people from their program (as they did some years ago)?

yes

Thanks all.

Anyone disagree and would go with BA in my situ., or is the answer to the question simply 'AA' ?!?

Do you fly transatlantic much ? No AA miles on BA transatlantic (still).

I'd go with BA but only because I'm likely to become a GGL and I do not know if an equivalent that exists at AA, and I almost never do transatlantic flights to the US so I basically never get to fly AA anyway, making '4 AA flights a year' near enough impossible for me to achieve.

I cannot see any other practical reason to go with BA in your situation.

I do, but only between 2 and 4 times a year - so no biggee to move from BA to AA on those flights (and if need be I could still credit the odd BA flight to my QF account).

Something I'm certainly gonna have to look into too og. Any FTers come up with any clever tools to quickly work out such things, or should I just use something like this http://www.webflyer.com/travel/mileage_calculator/ and run my recent flight history a flight at a time and see if it would have been enough to have qualified for AA Plat. or EXP.

Cos only prob. with my plan is that in exchange for the benefits we have been discussing here I/we will be giving up Flounge access and F check-in etc :(... unless of course QF comp. me/us WP for a few years after the move! ;)

BAEC with a continental address?

Use the tool in MileageMonkey.

• Choose the earnings programme (QFF, BAEC, LAN or AAdvantage).
• Enter your segments in the "Oneworld Explorer Validator" area.
• Set the "Ignore Errors (for expert users)" check-box.
• Click Go!

You will be provided an estimate of earnings in a table underneath.

http://slfft.allhyper.com/0.95/award.htm

Ah, I see... you are suggesting I do the 'pretend I'm French or Dutch by using an address there and qualify for the lower BAEC Gold criteria' thing.

I'd forgotten about that little loophole!

Problem with that though (if I understand correctly) is that you have to lose the UK BA credit card, and you can't do things like transfer Tesco points etc (as both are 'UK benefits'), so is a loophole with strings attached (wow, what a mixed metaphor ;) ).

Certainly worth a look though.
Cool! Ta serfty!

Yep, as you quite rightly surmised 3000 TPs a year, let alone 4500 or 5000, is well out of my reach, so that's not gonna be part of my considerations!

Are AA enforcing this rule yet? If so I guess I'm going to have to fly AA each year if I'm gonna move to them!

I have seen no reports of AA enforcing the four flight rule.

Last year a friend gifted me an eVIP/SWU which he received for reattaining EXP. DUring 2009, he did not set foot in an AA aircraft at all.

Actually no miles between the UK and the US. As an AA member you still get miles for TATL flights UK-Canada/Mex etc.

If you hit LTG early in your membership year you still have a lot of WP to go so that might be enough to become EXP on AA.

Is BA really enforcing that as a non UK member you can't have a UK BA credit card? I have the same situation with other airlines and it works without a problem.

No, AA is currently not enforcing the rule.

The only other thing to consider is that BA looks after their Golds quite nicely. Gold I know regularly get upgraded from WT+ to CW just for being Gold.