Adelphos

I'm looking at JFK-BCN this year. The business class fare is about $4,000 and the coach fare is about $1000. I may just buy the business class fare and use RDM I earn to buy my Thanksgiving and Christmas flights domestically, which are always expensive. Also looking at options on partner airlines. Fly less, buy business, burn economy is what I'm doing now. It costs more but it is less hassle.

HLCinCOU

Lots to think about here. The more I process it all, the more I think I'm happy with these changes. Here are some random points:

1. Obviously your flying pattern makes a big difference to the impact. I mostly fly from a regional airport with zero competition as AA is the only carrier. I also mostly fly for business on short notice, and since I'm in the middle of the country my flights tend to be shorter. As such my 2016 spend was about $22k on 135 EQM. I'd expect similar numbers this year, so I'm not worrying about the EQD. I guess this amounts to me just being "lucky" though that's a funny way to describe getting screwed on fares all the time.

2. The reverse of my situation is people who fly transcons all the time between airports with lots of competition. These folks will have to spend more this year to get to the same status. That's unfortunate for them to be sure, and to some degree I feel for them.

3. It is of course hard to fault AA for this; they don't value butt-in-seat miles, they value money. You'd think pretty much everybody would get this, but from some of the screaming around here (not on this thread specifically) you'd think the old system came down the mountain on stone tablets with Moses.

<redacted>

5. No doubt about it, premium partner flights are the new black. I haven't thought as much about these, but my initial reaction is a much milder version of #4. It's still a perverse incentive. To the degree anybody is flying these without trying to go someplace it's still bad. But the airline probably earns a profit on them, so a couple of the negative externalities don't apply.

6. Some are predicting that AA will change the formula for partner earnings in response. It seems like actually making it equal might be trickier than people recognize; the system apparently exists because AA doesn't have access to the revenue information. They could just decide to nuke partner EQDs entirely of course. Or they could just decide it's not a big enough problem to care about; they already probably killed 90% or more of their MR problem.

nrr

I'm sure there must be lots of EXPs who are leisure travelers (at least one--me). I'm finding lots of "cheap fares", particularly from JFK to Europe, which equates to getting over 100 EQMs, but < $5000 EQDs, hence loss of status for 2018. [I'm LT plat, so I get to keep that status.]
I could probably boost my EQDs by flying on BA, but that means I'd have to change planes in LHR (not a "fun" operation).
But, the bottom line for me, is do I really want to spend lots of money to stay EXP? 8 SWUs now 4 SWUs, UPGs harder to get, who knows (JonNYC are you listening) what future downgrades are in the offing???

WiscAZ

Personally, I'd prefer they just get rid of the EQMs. What difference does it make if I spend my $12,000 on one flight or 50 flights? I will never have an issue spending $12,000 in my current job but sometimes I struggle to get to 100,000 EQMs (Although not recently)

brobab

Last year I was plus 220 EQS. So far this year, I am $4,500 EQD, 18,250 EQM and 24 EQS. My total award available mileage will surely be lower based on my fares, but the threshold for segments is 120 - so no worries. Am I missing something? I have to fly no matter what - no gain in fretting about the lower miles.

apeortdz

Agreed. I can make the $12K EQD but I will be just over 92K EQM so I have two MRs planned.

WiscAZ

And where will lack in EQMs others lack in EQDs thus forcing people to make MRs for different reasons. I guess it makes sense but if they truly just care about revenue why not push people to spend more in more creative ways. Maybe it's coming.

frebay

About 4-6 hours last July.

muishkin

The EQD requirement simply "squeezes" the spending distribution curve of the all the members of a certain elite level to the right. For example if we just look at EXP, before this change, there might have been a "large" tail of the distribution curve which lied to the left of the $12,000 mark. With the EQD requirement, a large portion of the spend distribution curve will lie to the right of the $12,000 mark. Now this doesn't necessarily imply the number of EXPs will be significantly reduced (most likely will happen but no guarantee), since people might change their spending habits to match. One last thing. Why $12,000? Well it's probably the point where AA thinks the expected EXP benefits will not be greater than the expected profit margin. Of course such point is difficult to estimate and AA will adjust accordingly in the future.

shonamac

Posts like yours will accelerate the demise of the current rules.

HLCinCOU

Well, I personally suppose it's extremely likely the EXP ranks will drop off a lot, but you're right that we don't have actual evidence to support that supposition. Your point that the $12k represents what AA thinks is breakeven for the benefits they're "selling" to EXPs is an echo of schertz' earlier comment, and I think is spot-on. Well, except that in reality it was the amount DL thought was the breakeven...

HLCinCOU

Whoa.

Hey man, now you're talking brie cheese when it's strictly Gorgonzola time baby! I mean I just went and wrote a manifesto against MRs titled Seven Minute Abs but your "burn the dang house down and don't even fly butt-in-seat" is seriously Six Minute Abs type stuff!

Slightly more seriously, wow, I hadn't even considered it. But yeah, you're probably right. More thought required...

HLCinCOU

Bwahaha. Bwaha.

I reckon the "Premium Fare Deals" sub-forum is more likely to raise eyebrows.

(And of course I'm now on record suggesting it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if they changed (read: fixed) those rules.)

bse118

um, AA's got the data to realize that this is going on regardless of if someone posts about it here.

And outside of the FT/blog echo chamber the number of people that will be regularly booking international J MRs is likely to be pretty darn small.

muishkin

I think AA did some optimization as well but Delta certainly set a good initial guess.