Originally Posted by
mmjaysee
this just got me thinking... does this mean getting award redemption on AA to madrid will now be in high demand? iberia won't charge a fuel surcharge therefore people wanting to go from u.s. to europe will choose madrid as their connection city to avoid fuel surcharges intra-europe. sounds like it'll be hard to find award seats on jfk/mia/dfw to mad now (at least that's the routing i think i'm likely to take to avoid fuel surcharge, plus i'm tired of switching terminals at heathrow.)
Probably that's the underlying reason: to make use of IB/MAD more over BA/LHR. Plus, there are other ways of getting to Europe and the Middle East without BA/LHR; one can also use AY/HEL from JFK and even RJ/AMM from ORD, DTW, and YUL; both of which are also included in the TATL agreement.
There's also the proposed increase in AA's flights to/from Europe as well, and still the mystery of what to do with MA/BUD which has huge potential that is being left untapped.
All in all I think the new rules are fair. There's still no YQ charge on redeeming awards on AA and any other partners, plus we now get to earn better mileage (and for PLT and EXP 100% bonus miles ^ ) for flying TATL on BA and IB.