IMHO, I can't think of any FF program where status bonus points count for status requalification.

Yes, you can burn AA on any OW, including on QF, and certain rewards are much cheaper using AA points. Are you getting dizzy with all you have learned in the short time you have been on FT?

LH Miles & More

Definitely information overload at the moment. There should have a revision test I can take at the end just to see how much info I've retained

All FT exams are open book

For those who fly a lot, Dave is perfectly correct. However, for those of us who do not fly as much, another "benefit" depending on your future flying pattern, is that retaining QF Gold once you have it may be easier than retaining AA Platinum. AA Platinum is easy to get via challenge but harder to retain than QF Gold for some both because of official rules, and because QF has been known to bend the rules re retaining Gold status. You may be trading off between [extra miles/award flights in short term and no US lounge access] and [US lounge access in short term and all Oneworld lounge access after Plat status expires].

Actually that statement is not quite true. QF Gold is more difficult to get than AA Plat when flying in Y, however once you start flying J or F, QF status is easier to obtain.

Take for example an M (average discount economy fare) class fare on QF between SYD and LHR. Credited to AA, you would require roughly 5 returns on AA to get AA Plat, whereas 6 returns on QF to do the same. Go for an H, K or W fare and the difference is even more pronounced as it would take 2.5 return legs to keep AA Plat, yet still 6 trips on QF. Go for a full Y fare and AA needs less than two trips, whereas QF still requires 3 trips. J and F are a different ball game with QF status being easy to get.

The moral of the story for those wanting status is:

Discount flyers should stick with AA, whereas premium cabin flyers credit to QF.

There are many other advantages of crediting to AA over QF, and a simple search on the QF board will reveal all.

Now Dave you should have used "double" instead of "int"

Nicely covered. Also, if you fly to Eggland via the USA ( and so can do it on AA flight #s) you can renew Gold on 1 discount Y and Platinum on 2 discount Y

Also, just over 1.5 trips in BAs World Traveller Plus will renew Platinum since it has the same qpoint earning as full Y. (10500 miles => 15750 qpoints, so 3 of these gives 47250 of the 50,000 needed )

Dave

I never understood why AA (and many of the other North American programmes) treat F, J, Y & B fares all the same - i.e. 1.5 qpoints per mile.

It really depends on the routes and airlines you use. To take a similar example, LHR-SIN-MEL which I have flown several times and is close in mileage to LHR-SYD, crediting to QF in this case would require about 4.5 returns, a bit less than AA. So for "average" discount economy, crediting with QF can get you closer to Oneworld Sapphire: it depends on the routing.

While I could quibble that it is only 4.5 returns on QF with a break in SIN or BKK (rather than 6 if you go straight through), I do agree that for H,K,W fares on some international flights, AA is clearly better, especially on routes where segments are longer.

But this is not always the case. Where segments are shorter, or where BA flights are involved, QF may be about as good or better.

I recently used a BA/QANTAS RTW in K class, with routing LHR-SIN-MEL-BNE-SYD-CBR-MEL-SYD-NAN-LAX-YYZ-LHR
This produced 280 status credits, or about 50% of the status credits for QF Gold renewal.

Had it been credited to AA, my calculation is 23925 EQP, which is also about 50% of the EQP for Platinum renewal.

So in this example of flying K class, crediting to AA is not clearly better. Not clearly worse either, but one cannot say it is better from a status renewal perspective.

I disagree. Again it depends on your flying routes and airlines and classes.
Take the same route I just flew in K class. Had it been more discounted (L class or M class, (or V or R)), the AA EQP by my calculation would be about 13,470 or a bit over 1/4 of the amount needed for renewal of AA Platinum, yet if crediting to QF, it still earns 280 SC, or about half the number needed for renewal.

So in this case for a person flying "average discount economy" QF is far superior: only ~2 RTW needed crediting to QF in discount economy vs ~4RTW crediting to AA to retain Sapphire status.

And even if I retained Platinum status I would not get into AC lounges on NA flights. And even if I happened to do 3 RTW one year, QF status would be assured, but I know the chances of AA deciding to renew me anyway.

If retaining status over the longer haul is desirable, and annual flying averages a bit over 600SC on QF, but does not reach 600 every year, QF may be a better program to retain status, again depending on your flying pattern.

So despite much wistful reading of the glories of crediting with AA (and the short-term points I agree would be worth more) I have not yet been able to convince myself that it makes sense for me to change; i.e. QF Gold seems easier for me to renew than AA Platinum.

I am very open to learning about errors in my assessment.

But two discount Y on AA cost significantly more than on QF/BA ime, and two discount Y on QF/BA also can ~ renew QF Gold, equivalent to AA Platinum (see post above).

Not sure how you are doing your calculations, but the routing you mentioned should produce 235 status credits, not 280.

Also you need to take into account the 500 minimums for the AA programme which again will push the earning up to around 26500 EQPs for the above routing. This therefore means you are 53% of the way to requalifying or earning AA Plat, and on QF you would be 39% of the way to requalifying QF Gold (33% to earning QF Gold).

This therefore means that even your above example would have been much better off crediting to AA.

FWIW, the QF status credit earning table can be found here:

http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/...ivileges#jump1

Finally, (using your extreme example) if you were to move everything down to L class you would drop to just over 14000 EQPs which is still 28% of way to AA Plat which is much closer to the 33% of obtaining QF Gold. I should however point out that the most likely RTW fare would be a LONEx fare which allows the use of codeshares. A clued up flyer would use AA codeshares wherever possible thus again pushing the earning potential of AA past that of the QF programme.

Actually, ex-UK, QF/BA do offer a couple of fairly decent value ATW mileage based products which are valid on BA/QF only. There are different versions of it, issued in different classes ( one of which is in H class). They have the same rules, just obviously availability is better in the H class one. 29,000 miles max iirc. The H class meets > 50% of a Platinum renewal when credited to AA ( and for those starting out is ideal for a candy steal), however ( except for domestics within Australia ) only counts for discount economy status credits.


On a K class ticket, then the best plan for AA collection is to fly on the QF flight number where possible ( which should be pretty much possible for most of the trip apart from YYZ-LHR ) since K on QF is full mileage and Qpoint earning whilst on BA it only earns 25%

Dave

I think that the discrepency might be due to your counting the whole trip as discount economy however the domestic flights within Australia will have been on full economy SC earning ( since K domestics earn Full SCs )

I do calculate that he could have earned 23918 qmiles and qpoints when crediting to AA ( assuming he had ensured the use of QF flight numbers except on YYZ-LHR ) ( the drop to 23918 is due to the only earning 25% miles on BA )

Whether credited to AA or QF, they both would have brought him to similar distance towards renewal 46.7% QF vs 47.8% AA

Where the big difference would come in is in spending miles

Crediting to QF as a gold member ( 50% bonus ) he would have earned approx 37322 spending miles

Crediting to AA as a platinum member (100% bonus) be would have earned approx 47836 spending miles

In calculating the above, I allowed for the 25% earning on the BA flight from YYZ-LHR and postulated that if crediting to AA, the traveller would have used the QF flight number rather than the BA one when travelling from UK-Oz

So, although status renewal %s met are similar, the value of the spending miles is (imo) a lot higher. The earning on AA is
53.15% of a Y r/t from UK-Oz (90k required)
39.86% of a J return from UK-Oz (120k required)
29.90% of a F return from UK-Oz (160k required)

Compare with QF where the 37322 is

30.01% of a Y r/t (128k required)
15% of a J r/t (256k required)
9.7% of a F return from UK-Oz (384k required)

I would say that since in both cases it would earn 47% of the renewal requirements for Sapphire status, that the amount and value of the miles earned would have been far better accrued to AA )

Dave