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RE: Unlocking AAdvantage Gold: American Airlines' most basic elite status
Yes, in most cases you might as well just fly with the cheapest option #noloyalty. However, out of PHL, the cheapest itinerary is usually American, since it's a hub. Hence, for all but one of my itineraries this year, I chose the cheapest.
Also much of my non-business travel is "award travel" where you redeem airline miles for the ticket. Usually I get these miles by churning credit cards. This award travel does not count towards elite status. However, sometimes you can get amazing deals, like when @trang and I round-tripped PHL to MMH for a total of 40,000 miles. Now there's a transcontinental itinerary to a pricey destination at the lowest redemption rate + 10% discount from my Aviator Red Mastercard.
Wow, obviously, it pays off to watch these things. Here in the Czech Republic, you can collect miles with the national train operator (Czech Railways), not with the airlines though (at least that´s what I think).
The good thing is there is a very tough competition among different European lowcost airlines and you often get to fly from one country to another for literally several bucks (Euros).