Programs: UA 2MM, DL 500k, SW CP, GP 1M, HH Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 3,918
Quote:
Originally Posted by vasantn
What I said was that it was unethical and dishonest to devalue rewards that have already been earned, legality notwithstanding. What AA (and the other airlines) are doing is similar to the following: You go to your local Best Buy and buy an expensive plasma TV set. As an incentive you get a $500-off coupon that is good for the next 12 months. The next week you get a call saying: "Mr. jragosta, we've changed the rules and you have to use the coupon today or it will expire."
Like nonrefundable tickets, another example of how the airlines get to rewrite the rules by playing the sympathy game of limning or crossing the bankruptcy line. Reminds me of the last lines in "The Thornbirds": And still they do it. Still they do it. ("They" = we.)
Like nonrefundable tickets, another example of how the airlines get to rewrite the rules by playing the sympathy game of limning or crossing the bankruptcy line. Reminds me of the last lines in "The Thornbirds": And still they do it. Still they do it. ("They" = we.)
Just what are you referring to? If they sell you a ticket at a discount with the understanding that it's nonrefundable, just how are they rewriting the rules?
Like nonrefundable tickets, another example of how the airlines get to rewrite the rules by playing the sympathy game of limning or crossing the bankruptcy line. Reminds me of the last lines in "The Thornbirds": And still they do it. Still they do it. ("They" = we.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Just what are you referring to? If they sell you a ticket at a discount with the understanding that it's nonrefundable, just how are they rewriting the rules?
On this, I have to agree with jragosta. Different issue altogether.
Even electronic record-keeping imposes costs, and I suspect that AA sees little downside from clearing some small accounts that are likely never going to claim an award.
Explain, please. IF there were such costs, I would assume that they would be increased by making these changes. But I don't think even those costs are significant. It would think that a relatively simple change in the computer program that governs these records so that it could change the expire date for all. Likewise, simply allowing accounts to vanish at a set time would incur even smaller costs.
If much in the way of costs is involved, then there would be a spike in these costs as millions of customers do small transactions before this December.
Quote:
Plus, AA hopes to motivate those small account owners to actually get on a plane and fly somewhere to keep the account active. Isn't that what AAdvantage is really all about? Motivation?
No, it is not about motivation to travel more. It was supposed to be about loyalty to AA whenever one did fly.
I don't know if the point has been made already in this too-long thread but AA will eliminate some (large?) number of potential passengers the days their miles summarily expire. No argument that those people are not filling AA seats very often, but perhaps they had a bad AA experience and are top-tier on UA. Or perhaps they travel every ten years to their high school reunion. Either way, when their stash of AA miles disappears they'll have one more reason to choose a different carrier next time they fly.
So why p... off even ONE potential customer? Previous comments notwithstanding, the cost of record-keeping is a few bytes of hard-drive space, and a few more microseconds of CPU time once in a while. The only real cost to the company could come if the miles were seen as requiring an accounting entry.
Or if they're house-cleaning prior to spinning AAdvantage off to a third party to fund those new planes.
Don't forget the obvious impact to the bottom line if many people pay to re-activate their "expired" miles. I can live with the changes even if I don't like them.
My beef is AA gave no thought to the ill will they will create by changing the expiration policy in the manner they did. I haven't taken a USair flight since similar changes resulted in expired miles. We all usually have a choice in carriers and customer encouragement is a better business model than discouragement.
Exactly. But I am pretty certain that notifications will indeed be going out because AA will want to cover itself legally.
I received an e-mail notification on the 31st. Obviously, I don't know if, how and when AA plans to notify all of its AAdvantage members of the change.
It won't affect me personally, but I can see some merit in the "changing rules in the middle of the game argument," which IMO would be mostly obviated by a reasonable notification effort by AA. Like the new policy or not, fair or not, if you know about he change you can take action to avoid the potential consequences.
Programs: AA EXP 1MM, Marriott PLT, HHonors Silver, SPG, Avis First
Posts: 4,017
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnAx
I don't know if the point has been made already in this too-long thread but AA will eliminate some (large?) number of potential passengers the days their miles summarily expire. No argument that those people are not filling AA seats very often, but perhaps they had a bad AA experience and are top-tier on UA. Or perhaps they travel every ten years to their high school reunion. Either way, when their stash of AA miles disappears they'll have one more reason to choose a different carrier next time they fly.
So why p... off even ONE potential customer? Previous comments notwithstanding, the cost of record-keeping is a few bytes of hard-drive space, and a few more microseconds of CPU time once in a while. The only real cost to the company could come if the miles were seen as requiring an accounting entry.
Or if they're house-cleaning prior to spinning AAdvantage off to a third party to fund those new planes.
If AA was the only one doing this and no one else was, I'd say you have a good point. But they're not the only ones...so I see a net-zero effect.
Absolutely a net zero effect. As many have pointed out, one need only make a small purchase sometime during those 18 months. Not really that hard.
Regarding this being a "frequent" flyer program. In my eyes, frequency is relative. My level of flying(5x a year; only 2x on AA metal) is frequent compared to the millions who've never flown in their lives or who only fly once a year or in emergencies.
Programs: DL MM, NW Gold; AA Plat; HH Diamond, SPG Platinum, Marriott Gold, Hyatt Gold;
Posts: 720
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnAx
I don't know if the point has been made already in this too-long thread but AA will eliminate some (large?) number of potential passengers the days their miles summarily expire. No argument that those people are not filling AA seats very often, but perhaps they had a bad AA experience and are top-tier on UA. Or perhaps they travel every ten years to their high school reunion. Either way, when their stash of AA miles disappears they'll have one more reason to choose a different carrier next time they fly.
So why p... off even ONE potential customer? Previous comments notwithstanding, the cost of record-keeping is a few bytes of hard-drive space, and a few more microseconds of CPU time once in a while. The only real cost to the company could come if the miles were seen as requiring an accounting entry.
Or if they're house-cleaning prior to spinning AAdvantage off to a third party to fund those new planes.
I agree. They are just asking customer to go try JetBlue or some other carrier.
The problem is US Accounting Rules. They need to list the unexpired miles as a liability on the balence sheet.
I don't know if the point has been made already in this too-long thread but AA will eliminate some (large?) number of potential passengers the days their miles summarily expire. No argument that those people are not filling AA seats very often, but perhaps they had a bad AA experience and are top-tier on UA. Or perhaps they travel every ten years to their high school reunion. Either way, when their stash of AA miles disappears they'll have one more reason to choose a different carrier next time they fly.
So why p... off even ONE potential customer? Previous comments notwithstanding, the cost of record-keeping is a few bytes of hard-drive space, and a few more microseconds of CPU time once in a while. The only real cost to the company could come if the miles were seen as requiring an accounting entry.
Or if they're house-cleaning prior to spinning AAdvantage off to a third party to fund those new planes.
A couple of things to consider:
If they are top-tier on UA (or some other airline), they likely know how to maintain their miles. Either they care (and do it) or simply don't care. I have about 8K miles or so with America West (and I think they merged with someone). They will likely expire at some point. If they're changed their rules, they'll expire sooner. I don't care, and certainly won't suddenly notice that they're gone, or hold it against them that they have gone.
If they do only fly occasionally, it may make better economic sense to piss of (if they even care) some of those people, and lose a little revenue, while posibly saving a lot in managing those accounts. Sure, it's nice to keep everyone happy. But if you can save a lot by potentially alienating some number of fringe customers, I think any savvy business would do that.
My wife and I each have a few thousand points in AAdvantage and it is unlikely that we will ever get enough to use especially from here in Australia. I saw somewhere that you can donate points to flights for your veterans and we would like to do that. Can someone point out the site
My wife and I each have a few thousand points in AAdvantage and it is unlikely that we will ever get enough to use especially from here in Australia. I saw somewhere that you can donate points to flights for your veterans and we would like to do that. Can someone point out the site
Here is a page of interest for those who have just a few miles. There is a donation site and there's always magazines. (I'm not sure if you can the mags for Australia though)
