Originally Posted by
elitetraveler
In other words flying non-status passengers in that same seat would yield AA $5,000 in fares and $1,500 in fees. Also since the mileage would be divided by multiple pax there would be no 100,000 CX redemption.
At the same time, you're talking about an infinitesimally tiny fraction of AA's customers. Upending the whole system to prevent this, if done inelegantly, could alienate a much larger fraction of AA's middle-of-the-road elites -- customers whom AA almost certainly
is interested in keeping.