susiesan

Does anyone else want to see stopovers outside of NA allowed on international partner and AA award tickets? It's so frustrating to plan a trip to an Asian destination and not be able to do a stopover enroute to the final destination. It would be so nice to stopover in Honk Kong on CX award flights or Tokyo on JL award flights. These are such long flights. UA partner awards allow for this. It appears the only way to get the stopovers is to redeem for an explorer award, but these take more miles.

Does someone here on FT have the ear of AA executives to ask about making a change to Aadvantage program as part of the new AA that will be emerging?

gemac

Everybody.


Nobody.

mvoight

Have you heard from people who thought this was a bad idea?
I want AA to go back to the 80's award schedule, but I won't hold my breath on that one either.

bmchris

Not on the list - http://www.aa.com/newamerican

bkafrick

That list was pre-merger announcement.

SJOGuy

There's your answer. Shell out more miles.

I'm sure we all have wish lists a mile long. I don't see these things happening, because I don't see that we get to vote on it. If the new AAdvantage program looks more or less like the current one does, I'll be happy.

alhcfp

As the discussions rage about how Parker will decimate AAdvanatage, I am interested to know how micro does CEO get with a FF program.

Do they even know what is upgradeable and what the tiers are? Are these decisions left to the VP of loyalty programs?

This should be kept a separate thread. I am asking for a CEO management responsibility discussion not a merger discussion.

THANKS

84fiero

No, though some people here like to think they do!

Of course I'd like to see stopovers outside of NA, for whatever my opinion is worth (i.e., nothing!)

DCann

I'm reading this sitting in the Admirals Club at LGA hoping they haven't cut back on stuff already but my first thought is, it really depends on the CEO.

I think the stockholders would hope that the CEO is not knee-deep in trivial details but it could happen.

If there were to be a major change, it's possible that the exec in charge would run it by or at least inform the next higher level.

However, given that we're talking about a merger, there may be more of a need for higher-level sign-off.

How to Integrate an Airline was referenced in another thread but it might be instructive here as well.

SeeBuyFly

no miles expiration
reduced award levels
increased availability
no booking/rebooking/cancellation fees
allow either transatlantic and transpacific route
increased hold-without-ticketing period (you might say that if no cancellation fees, who cares, but we want it anyway)
hotel and car rental vouchers like the good old days

Now all we need is that ear of AA executives. If only they knew that we want this, they would do it. In connection with the merger, I am sure they are going to 'enhance' the AAdvantage program.

AAClubGeek

He may not directly make the decision, but he will choose SVPs and VPs based on the direction he wants to go. We'll get a real good idea on the direction to expect when we see which executives stay with the combined company. They've said they want to take the best from both. If the executives in charge of customer loyalty from US are kept, then we can expect the worst fears about Parker to come true. On the other hand, if the current AA team is kept then it will be a signal that Parker wants to fight the other 2 majors for loyalty for high value customers.

emma dog

The CEO is (hopefully) aware of the financials and the frequent flyer program will have several lines leading to the bottom line on the financial statement of the combined company. For that reason, the CEO may ask for an analysis of the program to ensure that it is acting in its capacity to: advertise and generate loyalty, provide revenue, and to minimize corporate liabilities. We don't know what the specific numbers are driving AAdvantage nor do we know what analytical conclusions drove the current program rules. It is probably safe to assume that those assumptions will be different following a combined airline and US's transition into OneWorld.

As AAClubGeek points out, the personnel put in charge of the FFP as well as other executives, such as the CFO, will provide a hint for direction of things.

emma dog

LOL.

If I +1 "Everybody", does this become the airline equivalent of Hilbert's Grand Hotel?

BlueEyedDevil

I don't work in the airline industry but I do have SVP and CEO level visibility in my fortune-100 company. FF programs are definitely big enough parts of the company to have CEO level visibility.

The obvious caveat before I say anything is that it depends on the CEO, he can be as much or as little involved in anything he so chooses. But the way things are often done is the CEO will set the strategy and then it's up to the VP and his team to largely determine the execution. So the presentation to the CEO will go like this:

VP in charge of Loyalty Programs says, "Option A is lowering FF costs and we will do the following 3 things to lower company FF costs. Option B is increasing the number of FF members and we'll do the following 5 things to bring more people in. Option C is getting existing FF members to spend more with us and we'll do the following 4 things to better court our existing FF members. Which option do you want?"

So the CEO will say "I want to lower costs, this FF program is too expensive so let's do option A" or he'll say "coming out of this merger we need to keep our best customers, let's go with option C!"

So if you want to read the tea leaves, see what the CEO's philosophy is. Is he a big cost cutting guy? Then Houston we may have a problem. Does he fancy himself an "innovator" and a "top line revenue" guy? Then there's reason to be optimistic.

jmr50

One of the most damaging things a CEO can elect to do for the frequent flyer program is to authorize mass sales of miles at very low prices. This can be a tempting thing to do when funds are low. Chase has done this with United in the past.

Why is this bad? Lots of miles at low value floods the market, reducing their value. It also makes the company more and more addicted to this flow, which restarts to drive the kind of distortions you see with United or Delta with their card programs.

So far, AA has a fairly long-standing but not especially distorted program--mostly, people fly to get status and benefits. There have been a few egregious examples (Healthy Choice comes to mind)... but US Airways had more of a history of selling miles, giving away miles, and otherwise lowering their value.

Let's hope that doesn't happen.