Ahhhh, I see, I see @:-)

Really?? I just can't get my head around the fact that this is always the case I can think of several occassions when I've been pushing it to make it the airport before check-in closes and just scraped in, and still managed to get my exit row seat. Surely if it was on a first-come, first-served basis, there's no way I could have been allocated an exit row seat when arriving so late?

And sorry Dave, I'm not trying to be argumentative at all I am just seriously scratching my head at how I've managed to be so successful in the past with my seating...the only thing that I could seem to attribute it to was being a QF FF?? I usually have the agent add a comment to my booking about being tall etc, could this be the point of difference perhaps?

Oh, and speaking of seating preferences, the one time I chose not to fly with Qantas (I flew SIA) I got stuck in the worst seat ever, and so have since believed it was the Qantas god's punishing me!! Seriously, I'm like the Pavlov's dogs experiment brought to life!!!!

Exxxcellent. With the awards points difference , you can see why I would suggest not keeping crediting to QF once you have been on a candy thief challenge when an F award flight on QF from UK-Oz is less than an economy to business upgrade on QF using QF miles (excepting if you purchase a full fare (Y fare basis) where a r/t upgrade costs 120k )

Dave

The Exit row seats are not automatically allocated to people and go to those that request it. On QF, my experience is that not many people specifically request the exit seats. Also, the seats tend (ime) to be blocked and so need to be unblocked when someone requests them. Some check in agents incorrectly tell people that the seats are taken when they are blocked. Before having WP status and being able to pre-select them, I used to have little problem getting them allocated at the QP where the staff seem to be more atuned to their being blocked

Dave

OK, so it seems the best use of my points is to allocate them to the AA program in that case. Veeeery interesting. ^

Thanks for all the great feedback!

Sorry, last blonde question, I promise!!!

I don't usually travel in B (this was the only class left on this particular date) and usually travel on the cheapest ticket available...in which case I'm very rarely ever going to earn 1 for 1 on AA...I'm usually only ever going to earn 0.25 or 0.5 per mile? In which case, I'm almost better keeping them with Qantas where I do get 1 for 1, regardless of the grade of economy I'm travelling in?

Once you have Platinum status it is less of an issue.

On QF, the cheaper fares will earn 50% miles and the K or higher fares earn 100% ; both of course plus your platinum bonus, so you will end up with 100% or 200% depending on fare basis

If you take a 10,000 mile flight in cheapie economy, you will earn 10,000 miles to AA vs 15,000 as a Gold to QF however I would suggest that 10,000 AA miles are worth more than 15,000 QF miles

Ona short flight such as SYD-MEL you would earn the min miles of 1000 with QF and 500 min plus 500 platinum bonus = 1000 when credited to AA, so the same earning

Dave

All food for thought, thanks Dave. I think that answers all my dumb blonde questions, thanks so much for your valuable feedback! You're a champion! ^

Umm, that would be 20K for economy and 35K for business class awards on QF flights using AA miles in and between Oz/NZ.

Ahhh.... I blame the font I was using....makes 20 look like 35

Dave

Only for small values of 35 .

Sorry to cut in, maybe this should be a new topic, but I was wondering about AA requalification. Does the platinum bonus apply for the re-qualification points total or is it just for earning/burning points?
This is important as I will be planning a nice holiday/honeymoon early next year and the soon to be Mrs Blackcloud will be platinum by the challenge and get over 60K of earned points with the bonus. Does this mean she automatically re-qualifies for another year of platinum status?

If taking the challenge early next year, she will need to earn 50k qmiles ( base miles on OW flights ) or 50k qpoints before the end of the year. The bonus points do not count.

How many points and base miles will she earn from this trip

Dave

Dave the air miles (base miles?) according to the Great Circle Mapper, link kindly supplied by you in the Plt Challenge thread , has 26,329, all on OW airlines. All flights will be in Business Class, QF, BA, IB, with none below 1,000 miles. There is also a separate, SYD-WLG flight that will earn 0.25 so will that be 1,387 or 500 or 346?

If you are travelling business class, then requal on qpoints is likely to be the easiest.

26329 base miles will give 39494 qpoints plus another 500 min for SYD-WLG giving 39994 qpoints for the year . It could be a few more since each flight's qpoints is rounded up to the next integer value ( e.g. a flight of 1001 miles would earn 1502 miles )

This will leave 10,006 points to be earned by the end of the year. Each flight earns a min of 500.

If you are using an ATW ticket and can extend the mileage to 33,334 base, then she would earn enough to renew outright from the trip

Dave