I posted this on the Europe board, too:

OK, a while back I posted about the American Airlines deal where you can use some of your miles to reduce the fare of an offseason ticket to Europe. We are going for Thanksgiving to Paris, and we fly to Paris about 3x per year because we have an apartment there and because we love it, of course!

Some of you told me this use of AA FF miles was actually a bad deal. Of the folks I'm flying with, I think that may be true only for me. For my friend, she has little cash and flies infrequently and it's the only way for her to go. For my husband, he'll just use the full 40,000 and only pay the taxes. But for me, here's the situation:

I now have "gold" status on American (hubby doesn't for some reason), and although I am not any sort of bigtime FF for work or any other reason, I guess somewhere along the way last year we flew enough trips to Europe to add up. I am still trying to figure out how to utilize this status to my best advantage, as we really don't fly very much -- just for long distances when we do.

So, some of you said I should just buy my ticket and save my miles. This would mean I would accrue miles on the trip AND would also give me enough miles to keep my "gold" FF status. HOWEVER, I need to be on the same direct flights with my people, and it appears I have no option but to book directly through American and this flight will cost $740.

Yes, I have found cheaper flights on AA elsewhere, but every single consolidator said I would not get AA FF miles if I booked, and that that was part of the deal of getting the good fare.

I hope this made sense and that I gave enough info. So, all you AA FF gurus out there, please give me your input!! I would love to know how to best take advantage of my elite status, too.

First, I'm not an expert in the AAdvantage program, so most of what I'm going to say is general stuff about "elite" status on a US airline.

Now, "Gold" is the lowest level of elites on AA. AA uses Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum; while most airlines use Silver, Gold, Platinum. You become the lowest level of elite earning 25,000 "elite qualifing miles" (EQM) or a particular number of "elite qualifying segments/points" (usually 30).

An EQM is one flying mile on a 100% EQM fare. With AAdvantage, most paying AA coach fares are 100%. So, flying a roundtrip from US to Europe will earn you about 80-10K EQM (depending on route). This means 3 roundtrips to Europe a year, on a qualifying fare, will do it.

Being "elite" has lots of benefits. You earn bonus miles on each trip in the subsequent elite-year. For the lowest level, it's usually 50%. [Not talking about EQM, but just regular miles.] So, you'll earn 15,000 AAdvantage miles for a 10,000 mile roundtrip. Also, you can get elite check-in and security lines at certain airports, priority boarding, etc...

But your problem is that you fly just enough to maintain your elite status if you buy all three Europe roundtrips in qualifying fares. Yes, you'll earn a lot of miles, but you can't spend them. If you spend some miles on one trip that year, you lose your elite status for next year - and no bonus miles for next year when you are paying for all 3 trips.

In my opinion, if really that's all you're going to fly, then forget about maintaining your elite stauts. Not worth the trouble. Just buy whatever fare is the best for each trip.

However, if you do travel domestically 1-2 times a year, or if you sometimes fly more than 3 European roundtrips, then you should maintain your elite level by paying for 3 European roundtrips in qualifying fares each year. With those three trips, you'll earn about 40K miles (including the bonus miles), which is good enough for more than one domestic roundtrip, and all the other benefits of being elite.

You should take a look at your AAdvantage statement online, see how many EQM you have for this year, and how much you can earn for this Paris trip. Then think about what you're planning to do next year. Then decide whether to play the elite game or forget about it.

Reporting from Buenos Aires -

<b>rkkwan</b>,

You have most of it right EXCEPT.....

Gold earns 25% bonus miles

and

I really don't understand what you meant when you said you can't spend the miles...

You could spend any and all your miles as soon as you earn them and it will not have any effect on your status earing.

The status tally is kept seperately from your total mileage.

For example:

You had 15K miles in the bank already from a credit card. You took a nice long trip and you earned 10K miles. The 10K miles will count toward your status qualification, but you can claim an award of 25K miles as soon as the miles post. The qualifying tally will stay the same regardless of what you do with the miles.

Another nice little perk of AA Golds and Plats is that they earn 4 free 500 miles upgrade stickers for every 10K miles flown. They could be used to upgrade on domestic and short haul international flights from any published fare. So if one was to fly from Tampa to Chicago which is 1012 miles total you would need 2 of these stickers to upgrade (if seats are available). There is a 25 mile leeway on the total of the miles. 515 miles=1 sticker, 526 miles=2 stickers. 1026 miles=3 stickers.

Gold does not give much in the way of perks and they are at the bottom of the totem pole for upgrades and such, but it's still a nice thing to have if you do travel 3-4 times a year.

Decisions, decisions....

The experts on these sorts of questions are in the AA forum at flyertalk:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=445
I suggest heading over there and checking out the &quot;sticky&quot; postings at the top.

I'm not an expert on American, but on most airlines the main benefits (access to international lounges, double miles) don't kick in until the 50,000 mile level so, depending on your travel patterns, it may not be worth spending money just to stay at the 25,000 mile level.

Note, however, that the 25,000 mile (silver) level on United provides the significant (and unique) benefit that you (and a traveling companion on the same PNR) can book seats in Economy Plus (4 or 5 inches extra legroom) on any fare.

I may be wrong but I think what rkkwan meant by not being able to &quot;spend&quot; miles was that if Lutece used miles to get an award ticket that flight wouldn't count as an elite qualifying segment and he/she wouldn't earn miles for that flight. Thus a person like Lutece who makes only a few flights per year might fall short in qualifying for Gold status even though they may have actually flown the required number of flights and/or miles.

My wife and I are in a similar position in another program. We barely fly enough each year to continue our elite status, so if we use our miles to buy tickets (flights bought with miles do not earn miles), we would lose our elite status for the next year.

So I'm resolved to finding other uses for our miles. Since we do fly domestically, it seems to me the best use of our miles is to buy upgrades on domestic flights.

Its true that often tickets from consolidators, or even the on-line services like Expedia, do not qualify for frequent flyer miles, so you just have to be careful when buying from those sources. I once found a delighfully low fare on one of the on-line services, and it qualified for frequent flyer miles, so I went ahead and bought two tickets; it turned out that the second ticket was in a different fare bracket and did not qualify for frequent flyer miles, so my wife earned miles and I didn't. Luckily, when I wrote to Continental asking how that could be, they were kind and gave me the miles, which certainly inclined me to stick with that airline.

Yeah, thanks Sunnyboy, that's what I meant by not able to &quot;spend the miles&quot; if all the OP does is fly three trips to Europe and have to buy all three.

But like others have said, they are other ways to use the miles. Use them for upgrades, or let your families and friends to use them. Unfortunately, using miles for international upgrade isn't as good a deal as before, now that AA wants extra money (CO has been doing the same for a long time).

The solution is to fly to Paris a fourth time every other year, using an award.

If I was in B.A. I would have lomito for lunch, bife de lomo for dinner, and a tango show.

OK - You guys are fantastic. All of you. I am such a newbie to all of this!

SOOOO, based on what you all have said, here is what I am thinking:
My husband is always traveling with me on these trips, so if I use my miles to buy my husband a ticket and I always pay for mine, I still get miles and he still gets the free ticket, right? Is this a good long-term strategy?

BTW, I did check out the flyertalk.com website and I've got to tell you that it was a little over my head. I was worried they'd laugh my silly questions off the board!

Lutece - Yes, that's a good strategy. Just make sure you keep your status each year by flying 25,000 EQM. Then whenever you have enough miles, claim an award for your husband to fly.

Thank you rkkwan!

Lutece, yes, fine idea.

I am transmitting hidden code here... dit dah dit dit... ( ) Read this thread on flyertalk before you buy your next ticket. Subtle, eh?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=342145

<b>rkkwan</b>,

apologies for misunderstanding.

Doing the Tango in Buenos Aires

so I hope you understand......

Just a thought, if you want to make sure you read all the fine print, Orbitz.com allows you to use your FF mile number.
Cheers-
Laura