I wonder about the following:

1) How many Explorer tickets did AA issue in 2013?
2) How many "free one-ways" did AA issue in 2013?
3) How many unique passengers took advantage of the above?

I bet a very small percentage of the overall population of AA FF's were taking advantage of these. I love the idea of these tickets in theory (playing with GCM was sorta fun at night), but I never had the opportunity to use them. Don't forget, the people here are the most extreme travellers and are definitely the exception to the rule. I'd also bet that many of the exception people aren't even earning their miles by flying, but through other means.

I think that people forget that the airlines are running their business the way they think they can maximize shareholder value etc. Airlines are not here for the bloggers, trip report writers etc. If the airlines think that by cutting this or that, profits would increase, why wouldn't they do this? How many minutes did it take for an AA employee to ticket one of the Explorer or "free one-way" tickets? Probably a ton more than the average ticket.

In my opinion, which matters very little, the worst of the whole thing was that there was no notice.

Finally, I wonder how this will affect the award booking services. Seems like the two things they took away (Explorer and Free one-ways) were great for award bookers.

Only time will tell if these changes will have any actual impact on the bottom line.