Questions and Answers

Basically I am trying to see if I should put my AA SFO-DFW-HKG-DFW-SFO flight I’m flying in January to an Alaska Mileage Plus account or AAdvantage.

Background: Next year is the first year in my life I’ll be able to get elite status (even if it’s AS MVP or AA Gold), mainly because I’ll take two transpacific trips along with a couple planned transcon trips. Given the SFO-DFW-HKG RT routing will give me ~19,000 miles, a transcon should easily get me status and the miles to redeem for one-way J reward on CX for a trip from YVR-JFK I hope to take in September. I already have ~8000 AAdvantage miles so I could book the J ticket in January after my trip. However, I know there’s only so much J class CX rewards available and I’m guessing Premium Economy rewards are a little more plentiful, which I can redeem on Alaska.

So my question is: Should I gamble on getting a CX J Reward seat in January on AAdvantage or just go for Alaska Mileage Plan elite status and redemption of presumably more numerous Premium Economy?

[USER=992]@Jon W[/USER] — Welcome!

Business class is typically plentiful on Cathay Pacific if you have a bit of flexibility, so I wouldn’t aspire to Premium Economy unless you have zero schedule flexibility. You can check availability for September now and see what’s available, to give you a general idea.

Otherwise, I personally think AS MVP is more valuable than AA Gold (assuming you live in SFO). AA miles are easier to accrue, but AS miles will get you further as you can have stopovers and such on award tickets. So it depends a bit on which you value more.

Thanks [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER]! You are right that I’m SFO (and OAK) based. I chose AA though mainly because of point accrual, especially if I choose to fly a CX codeshare on my 2nd Asia trip.