I would suspect that the changes & realignment in the C-suite have something to do with it. It's just speculation on my part, but I'm getting a vibe that someone woke up and figured out that a) the marketing message sucks; and b) (most) high-value flyers are profitable! Losing them to the competition is a bad thing... And I'd bet that those who were just asked to leave put a much smaller value on FF's than the numbers showed we're worth.

Granted, a small, small percentage of Elites took advantage of the AA offer and switched their flying, but I'd bet that was a disproportionate amount of margin that shifted with them.

Just guesses on my part, but I think any changes we see will be designed to attract and retain - that's after all the entire point of FF programs. Probably wasn't going to be that way, but those with that sort of thinking just got walked out.

Call me a glass-half-full kind of guy.