Questions and Answers

Hi Ben and Tiffany,

I was wondering if now that all of the “Legacy” US carriers have relatively similar Frequent Flyer Programs, are you guys going to switch?
You have said in the past that american doesn’t have the best operation, and based on that I assumed you only stuck with them because they are distance based.

Will you stick with American, even though they have nothing “Special” or will you go to Delta? (I would say United but, they don’t like you).

[ATTACH=full]46[/ATTACH][SIZE=4][I]Will we be seeing a lot more of this on the blog?[/I][/SIZE]

Thanks,
Noah

Noah,

Hope you don’t mind me jumping in here but I think about this regularly. Currently fly with Delta and Gold medallion. The problem with delta is the medallion qualification dollars. If you have the credit card and you spend $25,000+ a year and it’s not an issue. Me not so much cause I don’t spend that much on delta card.

I started with Delta because I used to live in Atlanta and I accumulated the status and didn’t want to just give it up when I moved down to Florida.

I am based in South Florida so I have to get routed through Atlanta almost every time I fly. Now this is not really an issue because I do get segments however it does add an extra couple hours to the day due to a layover.

Miami international Airport which is about an hour and 15 minutes from where I live is the American Airlines Hub. I think about switching to American however I just can’t get there because I don’t want to give up the status I have with Delta and start from the beginning again.

Don’t get me wrong I love Delta their customer service, the flight, everything is good about it. The problem is I wish they had more direct flights out of Miami/FLL sometimes.

I have a friend who goes from Miami to Seattle, direct flight, twice a week with American airlines and he rides first class
(due to status). It’s hard to switch once you already accumulated status with a airline.

As of right now I just can’t get myself to switch over to American airlines unless really necessary based on my travel.

Hope that helps!

Best,
Anirudh

[USER=922]@Anirudh Rallabhandi[/USER] It looks like the AA status challenges are suspended through the end of the year but typically you can contact AA and ask for a status challenge based on your status with another airline. If you meet the status challenge goal you will get the matching status on AA. Once they restart the status challenges and you have a block of travel coming up, contact AA.

[URL]http://www.statusmatcher.com/company/american-airlines[/URL]

I don’t think I’ll “switch” in 2016, but may not go out of my way to re-qualify for EXP either. Will have to wait and see what next year looks like in practice, I think.