Why I’m ‘Switching’ To British Airways – A Strategic Take On Their Easy Status Match
One Mile at a Time is ditching American AAdvantage for British Airways Executive Club. He took advantage of the current British Airways status match offer to get 6 months of Gold status and he plans to keep it.
- He didn’t have an eligible status – BA won’t match against American Airlines (or Alaska Airlines) Gold status
- So he did a match to Delta, and used that to match to BA
- He needs to take a roundtrip transatlantic business class trip to keep the status for a year, otherwise he loses it after October 14.
Since American Airlines upgrades are really tough to come by for most customers, on most routes, most of the time, and their lifetime status is much weaker than competitors, he doesn’t see a reason to stick with American AAdvantage for elite status compared to keeping it with British Airways.
He figures he can keep his status easily buying domestic first class tickets:
- BA Silver requires 600 tier points per year and four British Airways segments. That’s 15 short haul American Airlines premium cabin flights for the tier points.
- BA Gold requires 1,500 tier points per year and four British Airways segments. That’s 38 short haul American Airlines premium cabin flights for the tier points.
A cross country business class flight or longer earns 140 tier points instead of just 40. If you’re a premium cabin flyer, earning status on tickets, BA is easier to hit than American status. However you don’t have the same contribution of activity other than flying towards status.
Honestly I’ve thought about this, going more for BA Silver than Gold. The value of BA Silver, to me, is use of American Airlines Flagship lounges when traveling domestically.
In practice, though:
- I don’t live in a city with one of these. I only use them when connecting in a hub that does, or departing from one of those cities. My connections usually aren’t that long and I don’t often get to the airport super early.
- I had two Flagship lounge passes over the last year and didn’t make great use of them – brief stops in the Dallas Flagship lounge, largely because they’d have expired if unused. It’s right next to the Capital One lounge, too, where I find the food to be better.
DFW Airport Flagship Lounge
If you don’t care about upgrades or Loyalty Choice awards (I generally just take the miles), then British Airways Gold is pretty much as good as American AAdvantage Platinum Pro status which is also oneworld emerald.
For me, though, American status is pretty easy to earn. I earn it naturally on travel spend out of Austin plus I do have American credit cards. I don’t like to spend money on those cards that would earn more valuable points on other cards, or earn more points with other cards (earn in an accelerator category on a transferable points card versus just one mile per dollar with American). But one of my American cards is coded as debit on a tax payment site meaning I can pay quarterly and year-end taxes due for just $2.50 with the card, versus paying a percentage of the payment if using a different card.
Still, I decided I wanted the free option on Flagship lounge access so I decided to take advantage of the status match offer for 6 months. Six months of Flagship is better than none!
Now I’ll match my Air France KLM Gold status to British Airways Silver, which means six months of Flagship lounge on domestic itineraries – which was admittedly a nice perk when I traveled as a ConciergeKey member.
I already have Admirals Club access via my Citi Executive card. That’s not an incremental benefit to this status, though if I were making the true switch I’d no longer need that card anymore.
American Airlines Admirals Club DCA E Concourse
We’re just 1.5 months in to the American AAdvantage status-qualifying year and I’m 90% of the way towards Platinum Pro status, thanks to travel, card spend, shopping portal and the loyalty point bonuses from the Citi Executive card. I’m just not worried about re-earning Executive Platinum, and the requirement of 4 British Airways paid flight segments is annoying enough for me that I don’t really see BA Gold as easier. I could do it if I wanted but I’d have to go out of my way for it. (This is a legacy oneworld rule, that American decided to ignore last year and now Alaska Airlines doesn’t require flights on their carrier either.)
