AA Plat Challenge Qn

[Mal]

Well I signed up for the Plat Challenge last month, and got the email sent to me about the rules for the Plat Challenge. I was due to start the challenge at the beginning of this month.

Fast forward to today and my last AA flight posts pushing me over 11000 Qpoints for this month.

Instead of my AA Status ticking over to Platinum, it instead ticked over to Gold. My last flight bonus also posts at 25% not 100%.

I'll be getting onto AA tomorrow to try and work out what's going on, but just curious if anyone else has seen this happen before???? I'm assuming this isn't normal, and somehow the agent has signed me up for a 10000 Qpoint Gold Challenge rather than the Plat Challenge and/or their has been some kind of IT error.

(Note, the last flight was only ~3000 QPoints, and was before the 16th, so I can't see it being a mistake where I was either signed up starting on the 16th, or that I was signed up for the 5000 point Gold Challenge. My YTD Qpoints are also less than 20000 and segments around 10, so I didn't qualify for Gold just on flights ).

 

[Mal]

Actually, I think I've read something wrongly and perhaps did qualify for Gold

I've earned over 30000 EQM miles on AA metal this year, so think I qualified for Gold on the last flight (it pushed me over the 25000 mile mark).

Within a day or two, this should naturally change to Plat based on the challenge?

Does that make sense? Anyone want to confirm?

 

[Mal]

And it's already starting the process to morph into Platinum

"PLT CHALLENGE BONUS-GLD MEMBER" with the additional 75% of the miles that I should have earnt.

Assume the morph process will complete overnight!

So I suppose my Plat Challenge Question is answered now. Should have realised I earnt Gold, but wasn't concentrating on the EQM's but rather the EQP's

 

[Keith009]

Congrats on the double Gold and Plat statuses.

 

[kiwicounter]

Thats good to know. Hopefully I'll embark on a PLT challenge next year!

 

[vt01]

Thats good to know. Hopefully I'll embark on a PLT challenge next year!

Did my first PLT challenge last year when switching from QFF to AA. Fortunately I was able to do this on an LAX-SYD flight which meant I qualified on a single flight.
I just recently requalified for PLT by the 50000 q pts. Had I stayed with QF, I would not have requalified as WP and therefore get the 100% bonus miles per flight.
So far my decision to switch has been good. Good luck with your challenge next year!

 

[simongr]

Hi vt01 - do you do most of your flying in whY? Just intrgued on the difficulty in qualifying for QF as I would have found it much easier putting points to QF for status.

 

[NM]

Hi vt01 - do you do most of your flying in whY? Just intrgued on the difficulty in qualifying for QF as I would have found it much easier putting points to QF for status.

This year, if I had posted to QF FF , I would have attained QF Plat on the same flight as I chose to retain my AA Platinum status.

 

[kiwicounter]

Is that to do with AA miles being better 'value' than QF ones? Or because of your travel patterns NM?

 

[simongr]

QF are more generous to their premium pax in terms of relative status earning measures than AA.

On QF J class earns twice as much status earning as full economy and F is three times as much as economy. Discount economy earns half of full economy.

Compare that to AA where F/J/Y earn 1.5 points per mile and discount economy earns 0.5 points per mile.

A further comparison of how many flights (one-way) to achieve status in each class of travel:

Class	Route	Miles	QF	AA
F	SYD-NRT	4871	6	13
J	SYD-JFK	9961	5	7
Y	SYD-JFK	9961	10	7
O	SYD-JFK	9961	20	20

 

[NM]

Is that to do with AA miles being better 'value' than QF ones? Or because of your travel patterns NM?

I still have a large balance of QF FF points in my QF account. I use those points for upgrades due to QF's very poor burn rate for award flights plus their requirement to supplement that poor award redemption rate with cash in the guise of fuel fines.

So by posting all my OneWorld flights to AAdvantage, I get a far better burn rate (both in miles and cash) for the type of award flights I want to take (premium cabin medium and long haul awards). I was willing to forgo the OneWorld Emerald status for the improved awards redemptions.

But I will make it to Emerald before the end of the year anyway. If I had chosen to retain QF Platinum instead, I would not have been able to retain AA Platinum not would I have earned enough points or miles in either program for a First Class award to Europe.

This works for me due to my mix of travel patters, fare types paid, Lifetime Gold status on QF, and type of QF and AA awards I am seeking.

 

[JohnK]

QF are more generous to their premium pax in terms of relative status earning measures than AA.

QF are also more generous to passengers who fly in deep discount economy. Take my flying patterns for example. I will requalify QF Platinum again this year but would have struggled to even reach the 50,000 EQMs required for AA Platinum. I can understand for some people burn rates are more important but me status, and all the benefits associated with it, is way more important than burn rate.

A further comparison of how many flights (one-way) to achieve status in each class of travel:

Class    Route    Miles    QF    AA
F    SYD-NRT    4871    6    13
J    SYD-JFK    9961    5    7
Y    SYD-JFK    9961    10    7
O    SYD-JFK    9961    20    20

Is this to reach QF Platinum for the first time or to requalify? Someone crediting to the QFF program would possibly route SYD-LAX-JFK to earn 70 SCs in O, 140 SCs in Y and 280 SCs in J instead of routing SYD-JFK direct and only earn 60 SCs in O, 120 SCs in Y and 240 SCs in J.

 

[simongr]

This was to requalify on 1,200 SCs - yes you could earn more SCs by more complex routings but that would also generate more qpoints so for comparison purposes was not considered.

That JohnK is where I am very fortunate - currently sat on 178K qpoints after 118 BIS miles.