lightear

Beginning of this year, I was proud to have come up with a plan to fly multiple SYD-LAX round trips that would get me Alaska 75k by the end of the year. Now I'm beating myself up for not reading carefully that mileage activity can only be accrued for Alaska with Qantas metal. I've already flown a flight marketed as Qantas but on American metal:

SYD to LAX - Qantas metal, already accumulated mileage with Alaska.
LAX to SYD - American metal, have not accrued anything yet.

Question #1: I called Qantas and American about this situation and was wondering what I could do about the missing miles. Consensus is that American can credit miles to my AAdvantage account as long as I wait 15 days after the flight. Some paperwork would need to be done on American's end. Just curious if anyone else had a similar experience?

Question #2: This throws me off completely because I've already booked few other roundtrips and all of them are Qantas metal one way and American the other. If I decide, instead, to switch to achieving American Exec Plat then would it be best to try and see if I can get my SYD to LAX miles refunded from Alaska back to Qantas and then have Qantas forward that to American? Is that even a possiblity? The American customer rep says that refunds of mileage activity is possible.

At the end of the day, it was my fault for not reading carefully and I probably don't deserve any elite status for any airline. However, I'm going to try and make the best out of this situation and was hoping you guys can help share your thoughts and advice. Appreciate your time and forgive me if my verbiage is incorrect and for not typing acronyms like a FlyerTalk pro.

Dave Noble

For the flight that has credited as requested to Alaska , I don't think that there is much you are going to be able to do about it, though this is a question which would be best asked on the AS forum

For the flight where no credit is earned, you may be able to credit to AA

I assume that you had an AA account before taking the flight or at least enrolled no more than 30 days after the date of the flight , since AA has limits on earning

If you are travelling in economy class, you may have difficulty reaching EP with AA

Credited to AS, most economy classes earn 1 mile per mile flown. With AA , most earn less. Anything lower than B class, will only earn 0.5 miles towards status per mile flown

Actual spending miles will be 25% for O or Q class, 100% for Y,B,H class and 50% for other eiligible classes

What would earn 75,000 AS miles in economy, may well only earn 37,500 points towards status in AA

( If you are travelling business or 1st class, this is not a problem )

You will also need to take at least 4 flights with an AA flight number - but that is pretty easy to arrange in USA

How many trips do you have planned that are purchased vs not purchased? may it be worth just making sure that these are booked appropriately?

What are the change fees on existing bookings? Can you change the return flights to Qantas flights with little cost?

If crediting to AA, can you change any of the bookings to be on the AA flight number and get the higher earnings for AA