Due to some unusual travel this year I have the ability to achieve BA Gold status if I want to. I'll have to do a sort of MR (a trip I want to do but not one I need to do). I'm intrigued about achieving Gold as it will give me all of 2014 at Gold and a soft landing to Silver for 2015. Going forward I'm probably only going to do 1-2 flights per year on BA and I already have silver. Most of my flying is on American domestically. The $1500 MR isn't worth it to me for the BA status, but is it worth it for Emerald OneWorld? Outside of priority checkin/boarding/checked bags... does Emerald actually lead to free upgrades on American? Any other benefits I'm missing?
OW benefits are outlined pretty clearly on the website, so it's not hard to see what it gets you. OW EMD does not get upgrade status or priority on AA flights. The only occasion where OW status might help is if they have to roll the cabin and move people in Y to higher classes of service to free up seats. Once AA goes through it's normal upgrade procedures, they'll look for partner and alliance elites as candidates for the op-up. If your domestic flying is on AA and that's where you'd like to see benefits, why not credit the BA flights to AA and try to achieve status there? Depending on your status with AA you'd still see many benefits like priority seat selection, lounge access, etc.
As a BA Gold on a domestic US AA ticket, you'll get AC access if you don't already have it some other way. I agree with David, though, crediting to AA might make more sense across the board.
Yes, going forward that's what I'll probably do. By the time I realized how quickly I was able to rack up BA tier points I was already at silver. Now I'm wondering if it's worth one more flight just to get gold though. Its sounding like a no.
If you'll USE Gold, absolutely. Just depends on what means the most to you. Better club access to BA clubs (there is a BA and/or joint club in DEN, MIA and DFW, BTW) and always-access to AA AC's vs. upgrades on domestic AA flights.
Even if it is something which would be enjoyed it seems unlikely to me that it would be enjoyed to the tune of $1500, the number the OP cited.
BA Gold might be useful if you plan on burning those miles on BA upgrades a lot, since you get more miles to burn on upgrades at Gold. One thing to note is that unlike AA, there's no copay on BA mileage upgrades. But if you're getting those points flying AA...
