A couple of caveats to point out which may have not been clear in the previous few pages - hopefully for Alexander's benefit (you may already know this, of course
)
- The AA (and QF) awards (or reward, or whatever you want to call a frequent flyer redemption ticket) is fine, and has been demonstrated to provide some great advantages (specially AA) for travel however:
1. award/reward seats, specially in premium cabins, are more difficult to obtain - specially on high demand routes - ie you can't always pick and choose your desired dates
2. In general, baring special promotions, status credits (QF) or tier points (AA) are NOT earned on such flights, so while you could redeem points to fly to London in First (very nice
) you'd still be a nobody status wise. Now that's not an issue given all the perks would be awarded for travel in First Class in this example, however if one's stated aim is to achieve status for use on revenue tickets for example to get baggage allowances, lounge access, etc then these flights would not qualify (QF had a recent promo - or possibly still going - where award tickets can earn SC's but for international economY redemptions only - they haven't had one that worked for premium cabin tickets for a long time that I can recall).
I'm not dimissing at all the use of miles bought via AA to obtain discounted (compared to revenue fares) flight sin premium cabins - absolutely and I know several people who ONLY fly in this manner and don't care about anything else - and that's fine - everyone's different with their priorities and longer term goals (such as making, for example, lifetime status or only flying in international First, or whatever). It's something to be aware of.
If one is flexible with dates and such, then going the award route can make a lot of sense, though finding availability and peak demand times, specially to leisure destinations like HNL, can be tricky.... though often single seats are easier to obtain than pairs (or more). Sometimes having status does open up availability for more seats, or for example QF Platinums have been known to request seats to be opened for redemption and have been granted. So there can be a double edged sward there too.
Another point to note is if chasing status on either AA or QF - you are required to fly 4 flights on that carrier (well on QF it can be a QF flight number, perhaps operated by a partner like Emirates) - so if one decided to, for example, buy miles and use AA for reward flights, but then also aim to accrue status with either AA or QF you'd need 4 PAID revenue tickets (awards don't generally count) flights on that carrier to maintain/achieve the status.
Thinking more specifically to Alexander's case personally I would weigh many options up (as you clearly are - given a whole new world has been opened to you in terms of options
) and also consider your short, medium (say next 2 years) and longer term goals - intended patterns of flying, budgets that kind of thing. For example, chasing status such as Gold may not make a lot of sense for someone who may only fly a few times a year. Everyone's mileage can vary (pun intended!) and it's really a personal cost/benefit analysis.
Just my 2 cents.
