Ed Brill

Ian McNairn and I had a bit of dialogue going about airlines and status on his site the other day (his site is down right now, I'll have to add the links later).  Now that it's January 1, I'm officially a United Premier Executive (Star Alliance Gold) and continue with American Platinum (OneWorld Sapphire) status for 2004.  There were points in 2003 where I could have made the decision to fly American or their affiliated airlines and come close to regaining AA's Executive Platinum status... which, while useful, the 50K delta between Platinum and Exec Plat just didn't seem like it would pay off as much as getting Star Alliance Gold... much more useful to me when travelling internationally.
Anyway, with it being January 1, it's back to square 1 for everyone.  Even with status on both of Chicago's major carriers, I'll likely continue to favor American.  Main reason is that I'm at 1.65 million lifetime miles on the AAdvantage program, and once 2 million are earned, AA currently offers lifetime Platinum status.  That won't happen in 2004, but we're close enough that it's an admirable target to shoot for (I think I hit 1 million miles in 2001, to give you an idea of how quickly bonuses etc. can add up).
One way that I know I'll be able to fly American a bit more frequently this year is their new codesharing agreement with British Airways.  For years, these two airlines have tried to work out a full codeshare agreement, but US regulators have always stopped it because of feared anticompetitiveness around flights bound to Heathrow from the US.  In late 2003, they finally implemented a plan "B".  In this arrangement, they don't codeshare transatlantic flights, just onward flights from those destinations.  Thus, for example, when I head to Munich for the Admin/Developer 2004 conference in early March, I can fly "American" all the way, connecting in London to a BA flight:


To be honest, this is really the first time I've seen the value of a code-sharing agreement.  For the last two years, I have hardly flown BA, because their fare structure and whatever agreements with IBM required separate ticketing of any onward flights from Heathrow...and there was always some other European connection (usually Lufthansa) that was cheaper.  Now, as American can price a single fare for an AA/BA connection, I'm finding them come up as "lowest logical".  And with the fare sale that's on now, I might even be able to book this flight on aa.com, putting me that much closer to the Bose headset giveaway...
On the other hand, the total travel time for that ORD-LHR-MUC flight routing is pretty long.  A 2.5 hour connection time at LHR plus the additional 90 minute flight (11:30 total transit), vs. 8:45 flying time on Lufthansa's nonstop....decisions, decisions....well, the winter fare sales will probably last another week or so, guess I can give this one a few days' thought.
Oh, and happy new year, everyone. :)