ladybird said:
It does tend to vary. Typically lots of Syd-Mel and the like in Y.
Assuming your QF Plat drops to Gold next year ...
Privileges for QF Gold and AA Plat will be similar except for checked baggage allowance is better for QF Gold on QF flights. AA Plat earns 100% bonus while QF Gold earn 50% Bonus, both being min 1000 points/miles for a SYD-MEL flight.
However, it takes 20 such SYD-MEL trips to earn an AA award such as SYD-PER-SYD or SYD-AKL-SYD (or even PER-AKL-PER), while QF would take 36 flights to earn the 36,000 points required. And AA will not hit you for 2 x fuel fines as well.
But if you want to redeem for short domestic flights, then QF only need 16 flights for a SYD-MEL-SYD return award, while AA still needs 20.
ladybird said:
At least 1 x UK trip pa, occasionally business but more likely to be S with a request for points upgrade.
No option to upgrade with AA miles, so if you want the opportunity to waitlist for an upgrade, best to retain some QF status and of course you need lots of QF FF points as well.
However, be aware that you will need 96,000 QF FF points for a one-way upgrade from S to business class, making it 192,000 for the return journey - and no confirmed availability.
An AA award flight in business class SYD-LHR-SYD will cost 120,000 AA miles, and an award booking is confirmed not waitlisted, and you don't pay fuel fines and save the cost of the S ticket. First class awards to Europe is only 160,000 AA miles.
AA Plat and QF Gold get you the same checkin and lounge access benefits. QF Gold will get you increased checked baggage allowance on a QF flight, while AA Plat does not.
ladybird said:
Once in a while get a business trip to States/UK, hence the platinum, which will be annoying to lose!
AA Exec Platinum is harder to reach than QF Platinum when using long-haul business class fares. If you can take those occasional flights as ATW fares (generally cheaper than point-to-point business class to USA or UK) then you can easily ensure AA Platinum renewal and possibly Exec plat depending on other travel and regularity of paid premium class travel.
ladybird said:
Most important are: check-in priority, lounge access, upgrade request priority, seat request priority.
Priority checkin and lounge access are the same for QF Gold (assuming you don't retain QF Plat) and AA Platinum, with the exception of AA lounge access for USA domestic flights that are not same-day connections to international flights. Priority seat requests should be the same for AA Plat and QF Gold.
Upgrades are only available when flying your home airline. So you get very good upgrade choices for AA Plat on AA flights, but no option for QF flights. AA upgrades are generally confirmed at the time of booking (pending availability). Similarly, QF upgrades are available to QF members, but are wait-listed only and not confirmed.
ladybird said:
With minimal plans at the moment, it would probably take another year to get to lifetime silver currently.
To me, there is no realistic benefit of QF Lifetime Silver that is not part of AA Platinum. Lifetime Gold is where the QF benefits are.
ladybird said:
But at that rate its also unlikely I'd get to keep the AA Platinum anyway...
If you want attain QF Plat than AA plat is a walk in the park. If you can make one of your UK or USA trips into an ATW fare (generally less expensive than point-to-point business class fares) than AA Plat renewal is trivial.