Questions and Answers

I have been with American Airlines with the advantage program since 1992. I have been Platinum most of the time. I reside in Sri Lanka and South Africa, Since the changes in the AA program I will find it hard to purchase AA marketed flights out of Colombo and Johannesburg.
Could you advice me which program will help me achieve Gold status (Sapphire) accrue bonus miles, get upgrades and have a fairly good redemption scheme. AA was fantastic and still is, my problem is finding AA flights out of Asia and Africa.
1.My Goal
A.Gold Status or Platinum achieving it fast.

B. Award travel

2.Airlines considering
A.British airways EC – Silver Status or Gold status

B. Qatar airways PC- Gold status or Platinum status

C. Marco Polo Club/ Asia miles- Gold status

D. Miles and more – Aegean Airlines as my Star alliance option, also Singapore airlines Kris flyer, and the Turkish Airlines program to consider

3.Travel pattern –

A. 5 flights to 6 flights to the US from Asia

B. 2 flights to Australia and New Zealand from Asia

C. Intra travel in Asia

D. 2 flights from Africa to the US

E. 2 flights from Africa to Asia

F. One flight from Africa to the Pacific

G. 2 flights from Africa to Europe

4. Travel Class-

Usually in J out of Colombo

PE out of JNB

I use a HSBC signature credit card to purchase my flights which I get 4 times the amount of reward points per 100 Rupees I spend in my HSBC account when purchasing tickets with QR, CX, SQ, and UL. I can transfer these points to any of the FF programs of these air lines and redeem awards.

I used to use QR and credit AA miles which worked for me beautifully.

Your advice will be very helpful Ben, I enjoy reading your articles which has helped me immensely

With much appreciation,

Pradeep

@pradeep perera–why can’t you still use QR and credit to AA? Are you not able to meet the four segments on AA rule?