I agree totally, Dave. No question I could make AA Platinum on a challenge. However, imo, there is only a small chance I could retain Platinum based on my current travel spending. I accidentally happened to buy a K-class ticket this year, but more often have been in L or similar.
For a person like me flying discount economy, crediting to QF is clearly better for retaining status. The FF miles are a bonus.
I think what I need to consider is comparing the extra cost of higher priced tickets to retain AA Platinum (consistently buy at least K and possibly buy tickets on AA not QF/BA, and the cost in time and money of having to periodically do a mileage run in NA because AA does not have a good record of renewing folks who do not meet the official criteria) versus the extra value of the miles obtained on AA.
1. Any suggestions on how to approach that?
2. This year, for example, Mrs. Jrobin used my QF points to travel YYZ-MEL-NAN-YYZ at the beginning of July.
The routing permitted by QF was YYZ-DFW-NRT-SYD-MEL-SYD-NAN-LAX-YYZ.
(a) How many AA points would this travel have taken? It was 137,000 QF points plus 2500 points assisted booking fee plus 5000 points award change fee.
(b) QF has always required her to route through NRT en route to Oz; any chance AA would have put her on LAX-MEL? (Searching for other possible AA benefits to justify the higher spending.)

I think LONEx fares are great value: I helped my daughter buy two in the past two years starting in CAI. For the flying I have been doing myself, a BA/QANTAS RTW is several hundred dollars less expensive than an LONEx fare. Paying extra for an LONE4, maximizing miles on it, and using AA segments would be an option to assist in retaining AA Platinum.
Anyone know what is the maximum number of AA EQP one can get on an LONE4 between LHR, MEL and YYZ?

If going to Oz, then using the AA codeshare on the QF flight is a great way to do it cheaply since all the AA fares ( even N ) will earn 100% miles and the whole amount would count towards renewal. e.g. YYZ-LAX-SYD-LAX-YYZ will earn 19,327 miles towards the 50k renewal vs 130SCs earned to QF. Living in North America , it is quite easy to use the AA flight numbers to Oz.

To do YYZ-MEL-NAN-YYZ would cost 75k economy, 125k in business or 145k in first, though for that rate you would not be allowed to go via NRT but would have to do US-South Pacific non stop ( i.e. HNL-SYD, LAX-SYD/MEL/BNE/AKL ).

Also do note that QF will have charged a fair amount in "taxes" due to the fuel fines that they charge on award seats, whilst using AA points you would only have been charged actual taxes which would make a few hundred $ difference.

For the amount you paid in points, you could have sent her 1st class *and* saved a lot of money

Dave

If buying a LONE4, then do as many segments using AA flight numbers as possible. For best return on miles flown, pay for the upgrade to WT+ ( USD600) for LHR-SYD; not only do you earn a lot of points but you have a much more comfortable flight. How many miles you will earn really depends on what you do as part of the journey.

What ticket have you been buying? If it is the World Discovery Plus fare, you can pay about GBP100 over the cheap fare and book in H class and so get 100% miles/qpoints on BA and QF so will do you extremely well. You easily will make back the GBP100 extra paid on tickets with the reduction you will pay on fuel fines on award tickets

Dave

Except that I buy all my tickets ex-LHR, as LHR-YYZ-MEL return or LHR-MEL-YYZ-LHR RTW for a 1-year changeable ticket costs less than YYZ-MEL return on a 3-month ticket. The restriction on the tickets is that all sectors must be QF/BA, so AA cannot be used.
My question is whether AA has award availability on these flights at the beginning of July. QF has none, so the only route for Mrs Jrobin to OZ is via NRT (not so bad if going to CNS, but a nuisance if going to MEL and forced to go through SYD also). Does AA have better award availability trans-Pacific direct or do they use the same bucket of seats as QF?
Excellent point, though I heard AA and other NA carriers were considering fuel surcharges also.
And she would have loved both. If AA has more trans-Pacific seat availability than QF so I could get the flight to Oz for 75,000 points, and I can work out a way to be reasonably assured of being able to renew Platinum, I would seriously consider changing over; reduced lounge access in NA would be a bit of a blow though .
How many AA points would the trip (stops in BOLD) YYZ-DFW-NRT-SYD-MEL-SYD-NAN-LAX-YYZ cost if forced by award seat (in)availability to transit NRT?

The ATW ticket you are buying does sound like it is a World Discovery Plus ticket; looking at the current listed fares the cheaper of the 2 is the KxDIS2 fare. This ticket will give 100% mileage/point earning when flying on QF , so if you stick to using the QF flights or the QF codeshares for the trip ( other than the YYZ-LHR flight ) then you will earn 100% qualifying mileage so each trip will give about 50% of the annual renewal requirements.

Ahh. They do use the same inventory, however if you end up with a long routing, you can make changes without penalty as they become available. ( e.g. sister travelling CNS-SYD was booked as CNS-TSV-BNE-SYD however as it became available was able to change to CNS-SYD. Also, with the lower award cost, u would have had access to consider J and F inventories . Also, if booking a business award with QF, on a 2 class US flight operated as First and Economy, a QF award would leave her in economy whilst the AA business award gives 1st class when travelling within USA.



If my understanding of the ticket you buy is correct, then you would have little difficulty renewing platinum

If you had to do it as 2 awards it woud have come to 110k-125k in economy depending on time of year. AA does also allow travel on TN which , I believe, tends to be fairly reasonable for availability and would provide an option to keep the trip in the 75k price.

Just looking for availability at start of next July, I found Z (first class) availability on SFO-SYD service on 08 july which would give a decent option for a 145k first award

Dave

with either AA or QF
I assume this means no charges for any changes with AA award; as I recall, QF charged 5000 points for one change, but it may have been a change to a shorter route. QF often maintain changes cannot be made after the trip begins when other carriers are involved (such as AA), but on one instance when I called AA about this, the story I was given by AA was that they were willing to accommodate the change if QANTAS were to change the award booking; in their view I gathered it was QF not wanting to do it.
Recently, I have been making about three trips to Australia every two years, and each year have some flights in NA, and in Australia. So when there are two Oz trips in a year, renewing on QF is has been less of an issue when in K class, and you have shown that on AA it would not be an issue. But any year I only make one trip, the NA flying is insufficient to make up the difference (for example, 13 flights@~500min each last year is not many miles, perhaps 13% of miles needed to renew AA Platinum), but was 135 status credits (over 20% of needed amount for QF Gold). When I have a light year in flying, QF have renewed Gold each time, yet I understand that AA would not do that.
I gather that AA has a mileage or segment or stop limitation on AA awards? or why would it be two awards?
TN would be on my list to fly someday, so this could be attractive.
But generally we do not know for certain that we are going until March, or possibly January at the earliest. Perhaps having the SFO option now may increase trans-Pacific award availability.

With a normal award, changes can be made free of charge as long as the starting point,end point and carrier remains the same . So if booked, for example, on Qantas from LHR-SIN-PER-SYD and you later found that LHR-BKK-SYD became available and you wanted to swap to that , then there would be no charge. date/time changes are free too


You could be right there. If you were to do a LONE4 on the single year with WT+ on UK-Oz, then you should be just about on the money to renew. I would also consider whether an alternating status and just getting a Qantas Club membership would perhaps be better value given the great difference in award values. An average of 62.5% bonus on AA ( alternating between 100% and 25% ) is better than a consistent 50% bonus from QF especially given the lower cost of the awards

It is based on zones. If you go to aa.com and go to Aadvantage -> Partners and mileage programs -> airlines and then go to the Aadvantage Partner Airline award chart you will see the cost for all partner awards . In most cases you have to fly direct from start zone to destination zone., so to do North America to South Pacific youcannot go via Asia. If you go via Asia , it requires 2 awards

There are also One World awards which are mileage based rather than zone based, but getting to NAN was on Air Pacific which is not a OW carrier

Dave

That makes sense to me. Next time I buy a ticket I will do a spreadsheet with the LONE4 using AA and whatever fare I would otherwise buy (possibly an LONE4 or KLDIS2, or I may have to use a Global Explorer). The QANTAS Club could be a backup option if I do not renew Platinum; it also solves the issue of access to AC's on NA flights. Perhaps I should have paid QANTAS Club for two years six years ago when I had a preferential rate, but I only paid for one knowing I would become Gold a few months later. Somthing rings a bell that corporate membership rates can be obtained, perhaps through Aust. FF?

Good point!
Thanks again!
Jim

Corporate memberships are available to any companies/groups that can get 10 people together to take out membership

One thing also when it comes to NA flights on AA; as a AA Gold/Platinum member you would have the ability to pre-select exit row seats for the flights plus you will also accrue upgrade credits which can be used to upgrade to 1st ( assuming that you fly real AA rather than on little beagles )

Dave