Aadvantage Gold

I've been an American Airlines Aadvantage member
since 1990. Aadvantage is their frequent flyer
club and every time you fly with them, you get
miles to use on free flights. We used our miles
last summer to go to South America. We fly on
Qantas Airlines between the States and New
Zealand and because the two airlines are partners,
when we fly on Qantas, we get miles on American.
So today, I received from Lynn in the mail, my
new Aadvantage card, which is Gold status. This
means that I can get extra miles when I fly,
upgraded seats sometimes and free bag check in
instead of paying to check each bag. Not a huge
deal, but a nice little perk. Hopefully it will
come in handy over the next year or so.

More...or Less

One of the nice perks of coming to the Ice in the past
was being able to trade in your ticket back to the States
in for credit toward an Around The World (RTW) ticket.
Don't get me wrong. You can still do this and many
people do. Lynn and I did it last year and had a great
time. However, with the Airline industry as screwed up
as it is, it's getting harder...and more expensive to do
so. I've been doing some research lately for potential
travelling in March, when we get off the Ice from the
Summer season. When you leave from the Winter, you get
to fly either One World airlines or Star Alliance airlines
at essentially the same price. However when Summering,
the only financially realistic option is One World since
the Fare Credit rules are different. What a mess One
World is! It's really hard to get from Point A to Point B.
Especially if you want to go to places that aren't exactly
"touristy". It's so frustrating that I think we've sworn
off a RTW option for next March, focusing on a single area
on this side of the globe that might be cost prohibitive
to fly to from the States and isn't since we're already
here. It's a shame though and I think that it's only yet
another sign of the times that flying is going to get more
and more expensive no matter what the price of fuel is.