I have been away from AA for a while, I thought AA had a challenge program. Has that been discontinued?
I guess the difference with the challenge program is you don't get the status until you have reached the challenge while the US one gives you the status right away?
I guess the trick is to balance between getting real elite flyers over without the insulting $200 charge vs. preventing people who game the system to get status for a few months. To me, the best thing maybe to charge $200 but refund it fully or partially depending on how much the customer ends up flying...