I avoid jumpseating or non reving on American because we have to pay. I do use AE now because it's a one leg commute, but when I had a two leg commute I was always using other carriers. If the flights are AE, AE pilots trump AA pilots for the jumpseat and visversa. Going home for a weekend can be nice, but the stress of making it back kinda sucks. I believe I did it during the week of cbt training that we had in DFW. It's like an extra week to finish the computer stuff but no one really showed up for it so I went home on Wednesday and came back late Saturday.

There is an alpa app for jumpseating on other carriers. Most of the time it's as easy as going up to the gate and asking if you could js on that flight. Just have your airline ID ready and your passport and you're good to go.