The upgrade conversion benefit was intended to benefit two types of flyers:

1. Those who fly International almost exclusively

2. Those who fly Eagle almost exclusively

In both cases, the travelers don't receive ANY benefit from the upgrade credits as they cannot use them.

What has happened instead is that many flyers have taken advantage of this as a method of padding their FF accounts with additional miles at the expense of the airline. As one FTer who I respect pointed out to me... it costs AA NOTHING extra to put a warm body in an otherwise empty F seat (since the upgrades are space available)... but it costs more to pay out award tickets for the converted miles.

I do feel very bad for the loss of benefit for the travelers who this was originally intended to benefit. For the rest of you, however, I think this is another great example of misuse causing a well-intended benefit to vanish.