Clifton

We're trying to figure out what the primary value is of attaining elite status - in this case my wife made gold elite on AA. We wouldn't normally, not being business travelers.

We've been reading the website and we think we've read that this status doesn't provide lounge access, no special upgrades, etc? Check in at the business counter is about all we could find. (not a major thing for us) I've probably missed something else, so am hoping anyone could fill in the gaps for us, What are the benefits of low level elite status to an infrequent, mostly leisure traveler? Is there any?

Clifton

Or I should say "Are there any?". Bad editing!

Gardyloo

Gold status on AA is the bottom elite tier and frankly offers the fewest perks; you get to pick preferred seats, e.g. exit row or bulkhead, which can be an advantage on many flights, and you get a 25% mileage bonus - fly 1000 miles, credited for 1250. The main thing is that you get 4 500-mi electronic upgrades for every 10,000 miles flown after reaching status, so if you fly 20,000 miles you get 4000 mi. worth of upgrades (domestic) plus you can purchase additional 500-mi segments for $35 (IIRC) each. Makes for easier and cheaper first class upgrades.

The real benefit with the AA program kicks in at Platinum or Executive Platinum. Double miles - so a 5000 mi. transatlantic trip nets you 10,000 miles - one RT and it's a free coach ticket. Plus at Plat your 500-mi upgrades take priority over Golds; and at EXP your domestic upgrades are free and you get 8 one-way system-wide upgrades, so business class overseas, etc. One great perk at EXP is that you get to bypass the usual agents and deal with the EXP desk, which has the most experienced and can-do reps I've ever encountered in any business anywhere. They don't call them AAngels for nothing.

There are other perks - no change fees, etc - that come with higher status.

I'd hesitate to single out any one benefit, but if I had to I'd say it's the mileage accumulation. One year of heavy flying can create a very big balance in your mileage accounts; and AA's redemption scheme (including the marvelous Oneworld awards - see some of AAFF's threads on one he took recently to S. America) is IMO the very best in the industry. We leave this week on a trip (starting in Europe) that required only 75,000 miles each for business class from Europe to Africa and back. Other FF plans would have charged 90K miles or more. 75,000 miles sounds like a lot, but when you count double flying miles (or more if you ride in business/first class) plus credit card purchases plus promotions, it's really not that tough to accumulate. The purchased cost of our trip, using discounted fares if there were any, would have been over $6000 each. We couldn't have done it without previous elite mileage bonuses.

rkkwan

I think if you can maintain a basic level (25K) elite every year without too much expense or trouble, it's worth doing it.

Bonus miles, priority check-in, priority security line (at hub airports), special phone lines, better availability to award travel, chance of upgrade (policy vary among airlines), etc...

Those are by no means insignificant, even if you fly just 25K miles a year. But if you think you need to go out of the way - like making trips you don't want to do - or flying an airline you really don't want to, then please don't play this game.

J62

Best benefit of AA Gold status is group 1 boarding. Never have a problem finding overhead space for a carryon.

Other benefits like priority seating, upgrade availability, phone #'s, etc aren't really a big deal, I agree.

Clifton

Thanks everyone. Actually, the priority boarding is nice, as is the security line if we could use it - we fly on longer leisure trips out of STL, which AA sort of refers to as a "mini-hub" sometimes... whatever that means. I'm originally from there, so AA was it and that's why AA is where most of our miles are. We got about 200K between us on AA, but that's accumulated for awhile. We drive the dogs up to stay with family is why we still fly out of AA for trips over 1 week.

Anyway, I used to fly a lot, back during a different job. Unfortunately, didn't know all of these things back then. Totally missed out on all this status stuff then. Nowadays, I fly maybe a couple of times a year on business, all domestic, and out of Memphis, where we live now. That puts me on NWA for those trips usually, as they have 95% of the gates here. But not enough frequency or distance to really rack up points with them. Our AA stuff is almost all international. The Gold status sort of came up unexpectedly in my wife's case, as she had to fly to Australia last minute (full fare) twice. She found was within a couple thousand of elite (we could have done the challenge, but as she was going home for a loss in the family, you don't really think about that sort of thing at the time).

So, we decided a couple of weeks ago to take a cheap fare to Mexico City, leaving in 3 weeks. Kind of for the status, but really mostly because it sounded like fun. Otherwise our flying pattern is one big trip per year, getting a reasonable fare where we can, choosing OneWorld if it's within reason. But ended up flying Eva this past January as they had cheap premium economy open jaw STL-BKK, PNH-STL. So now we have miles on Continental too. lol. I obviously am NOT very good at this game.

Now we're trying to figure out the best econ fare for another open jaw in April, STL-CMN, return GRX-STL. Iberia, I guess. Not sure what they're like. Any thoughts/opinions welcome.

Oh - last question. If she's elite and I'm not there yet... do we we both board group 1, both do the separate security line, or am I waving from the sidelines?

rkkwan

Clifton - You can board together.

Anyways, this is what I really think.

- You can try to get Gold on AA for the coming year <b>for the purpose of</b> spending those 200K miles you have. No reason to hoard the miles and not spend them. With Gold status, you can enjoy some of the perks of being elite while you spend the miles.

- Then switch to collect miles on <b>one </b> Skyteam member. If you like flying EVA, and mostly use NW for domestic, I suggest you put all your miles into Delta Skymiles for all your EVA, CO, NW, DL and other Skyteam travel. [EVA is not a partner with NW; CO's Onepass programs are stingy with flying partners and becoming elite on CO.]

You get good coverage of most of the US with those NW, CO and DL and good coverage of Europe with CO and DL. Skyteam is pretty weak in South Asia, but it's not impossible to fly there via AF or KL, or CO directly to DEL. Their weakest spot is Australia/NZ - so it's a problem if you're planning to go there.

Clifton

rkkwan, thanks for the followup. I appreciate how much top notch flying advice you, Gardyloo and the group of regulars contribute to this forum.

What you're saying makes a lot of sense. The one major downside for us is on that last sentence you posted. Australia is our number one return destination. (Ireland being the other) My wife's Australian and her whole family lives there, so we go back pretty frequently, in comparison to other places, which are fairly unpredictable. Lots of interests. Our next <i>planned</i> trip there will probably be late '07. It may be a good time to use the miles.

So it kind of came down to OneWorld or StarAlliance. I like both Qantas and Air New Zealand a lot, but am not very fond of United on any count. So, since at the time she moved to the US we were still in St. Louis, where AA was strong, and since I was already using them, OneWorld just sort of came naturally. Then we moved to Memphis and that threw a wrench in the works! But since we still usually head for STL and then fly, I guess OneWorld may still make the most sense. It's too bad that the AA codeshare # on that EVA flight was about twice as much as booking EVA direct... we got the open jaw Premium Econ for under $1100 each in high season, all in, for SE Asia, so I'm not really complaining.

Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea to consolidate those CO &amp; NW miles on DL, huh?

Gardyloo

STL became an AA hub when they bought out TWA.

If you don't like United and Oz is a key destination, AA/Oneworld is really the best option. It will become even better when Japan Airlines joins the alliance after the first of the year.

As for MEM being a key NW focus city, you're right, but honestly NW seems hell bent on self destruction these days, and fleeing to DL seems like running back into the burning building. If you fly NW and DL a lot you might look at (ready for lateral thinking here?) Alaska Airlines' mileage plan, since you can earn AS miles on DL, NW, CO <i>and</i> AA, not to mention Qantas and others. Some partner flights (AA, NW, others) actually earn &quot;elite qualifying&quot; miles with Alaska.

Alaska elite status won't do you much good on other airlines (nobody recognizes each others' elites very much) but AS has good redemption rates for overseas awards, and if you travel to the west coast at all (or Mexico) their routes are excellent and quite comprehensive. Just a thought.

Elite status by itself is not worth much if you don't fly sufficient to renew it or. But if you fly more than average, it makes a big difference in mileage payoff and airport convenience. Next time you go to STL for an AA flight, look at the elite checkin lines and the &quot;premium security&quot; channels and compare them to the non-elite ones. These days it can be a striking difference.

Clifton

Hmmm, I'll have to check out the Alaska Airlines idea. I'd have never thought of that. Don't get to the west coast a lot, but some. Lately just to connect on to Asia or Oz. Not sure about how often we'll get to Mexico. This will be our first trip (other than an ill-advised foray of mine into Tijuana as a twenty-something, but we'll not count that one). So, we'll see how we like it. Going to check out Puebla and are pretty excited about it, for it just being a long weekend. If we like it though, I could see us slipping in some more short trips like this one. It's too long sometimes between the multi-weekers.

Yep, I was an TWA customer, and did more than my share of grousing about AA at first. I'm still not sure that AA always remembers the STL hub thing ... sure seems as often as not like a satellite of ORD and I sure miss that possibility of a non-stop to Gatwick. Still, living in NWA town... it could be worse, and you aren't kidding about their path. The evil part of me is almost curious how much things would improve here in MEM if NWA weren't so dominant. Not that I'd want to see those jobs go by any means, but some competition would be nice. Have flown DL maybe twice in the last few years. Can't decide what I think of them or about going through Hartford. LOL at the burning building analogy. Point well taken. Eh, it's not so many skyteam miles that a wash would kill me. And we *can* still get an AA flight out of here in Memphis. There's a couple that go out - always on to DFW and ORD of course, but it's doable. Not always a great price though.

Lots to think about, and as always, I really appreciate the thoughtful responses.

rkkwan

STL is one of the main reason AA bought TWA. That was before 9/11, and AA was maxing out its hub at ORD. They thought that STL could become another hub for east-west traffic to relieve ORD.

But once 9/11 happened, that wasn't necessary anymore, and they downgraded STL to basically a focus city. Some of AA's moves in the past 2 decades are highly questionable. They did a similar thing with Reno Air. Caused them a lot of trouble with their unions for that purchase, and then they turned around and gave up Reno's hub and routes. Don't forget that they also tried BNA and RDU as mini-hubs too. Not much left of those except for the RDU-LGW route.

Patty

&quot;I suggest you put all your miles into Delta Skymiles for all your EVA, CO, NW, DL and other Skyteam travel&quot;

That would work if EVA was a DL partner

rkkwan

Oops... That's right. DL is partner with China Airlines (CI), not EVA.

mrwunrfl

<i>Now we're trying to figure out the best econ fare ...</i>

The best fare would be free. Sounds like you might have enough miles for two AAdvantage tickets for your April trip, maybe in business class.

I am not an AAdvantage expert, but I the trip would cost 70,000 in coach or 90,000 in business class for each ticket, if you used a oneworld award.

mem-grx-cmn-mem is about 9553 miles, which would be a oneworld Distance Zone 4 award. I *think* that you only count the point-to-point distances (mem-grx) and not the connections (mem-ord-mad-grx), and that you include the distance of the open-jaw (grx-cmn) when figuring the distance zone. Using AA and Iberia outbound and BA and AA on return.

Otherwise,
mem-ord-mad-grx-cmn-lhr-ord-mem
is about 11006 miles and would be 90K in coach.

If you are still sitting on Frequent Flight Bonus miles, then I suggest you use them up. They are depreciating.

Gardyloo

Including CMN would exclude an AA all-partners award since Morocco is regarded as Africa, which makes the price of poker go way up.

You are correct that one only counts the stopover points for OW awards, so it would be 70K in coach or 90K business for MEM-CMN-GRX-MEM. If it were me I'd go on a saver coach award to GRX (40K) and buy the CMN ticket separately, or (what I'd actually do) is get a cheap ticket to NYC or DC and then do an 80K Oneworld business class award from there (under 9000 miles total.)

Clifton

Ok, here's a strange question - on an award trip like this, if it's a true open jaw, and not a 3 leg itinerary... do you count the mileage between arrival and dept city on this OW award?

Here's why I ask. We fly out of STL on a STL-BRU (or maybe LON) rather than into CMN. Then return back GRX-STL with no in-between flights on the other side, as we'd plan to go overland to GRX anyway. That way we'd be doing all of the along-the-way overnight in the Sahara; driving in the Rif; ferry at Tangier type stuff..

I was thinking that Casablanca isn't a big attraction according to most accounts. Marrakech is really the first must-do, and it seems to have a bunch of budget operations flying in from all over Europe. Could do an interesting Euro stopover instead of CMN, plus the BRU based plan is 8942 mi according to the circle mapper site, if you don't count anything except straight line on the starts/stops. So that's where the question comes from.

Otherwise, I'm still sort of tempted to hang on to the miles 'til the Oz trip. See if we can add a few more with these next flights + CC miles and then get business on that monster. I do ok in econ to Europe generally (except for AerLingus, which provided a seat that was like riding a bus with bad springs)... but the Oz and Asia trips are 16 hrs of bad mojo even when the airline is good. I'd gladly throw some (or all) miles at that trip for that business seat.

Clifton

Anyway, on the scenario above, that doesn't read very clearly. But was asking about an award ticket STL-BRU, then GRX-STL.

Using a budget carrier from BRU to Morocco (amd leaving it out of the award). Then overland to GRX. No counting BRU-GRX if it's not part of the award, right?

Gardyloo

Right. STL-BRU//GRX-STL, under 9000 miles, 80K in J on a Oneworld award, 90K for an All-partners; 40K off-peak in Y, 60K regular.

Compliant OW award (AA + 2 OW airlines, or 2 w/o AA) would be something like STL (AA) xORD (AA) BRU//GRX (IB) xMAD (BA) xLHR (AA) xJFK (AA) STL. Or you could change in London on the way to Brussels and take IB's MAD-ORD flight coming back, thus: STL (AA) xORD (AA) xLHR (BA) BRU//GRX (IB) xMAD (IB) xORD (AA) STL (&quot;x&quot; meaning no stopover.) There are some pretty amazing itineraries possible using OW - Helsinki, maybe, or Mexico City (in order to use BA transatlantic.)

mrwunrfl

The LHR-CMN fare is about 130 pounds. You could also get a one-way ticket for BRU-CMN on SN Brussels.

Clifton

Thanks guys. Amazing what you can work out on an award ticket. Not sure we can take advantage of flying to all points right now (limited time), but I find that really interesting. Maybe...

If we do the award, we'll probably catch something to RAK, which has a number of budget flights in. We'd miss the Hassan mosque, but otherwise nothing in Casablanca we'd feel we missed. Atlas Blue has a flight out of BRU to RAX for 135 euro, all in... or Easyjet about the same out of LGW for 51 pounds. So, not too bad really. Will have to give it some thought.