A very sad day for AAdvantage members based in TLV.

Not that I think LY business class product is great, but LY was almost the only option to use miles going east to Asia and the South Pacific given the AAdvantage routing rules. Now it's basically RJ, and it all comes down to TLV-AMM availability which I don't think is too great.

I wonder if AA will make an exception to it's routing rules because of the rather unique situation TLV is at. Maybe reallocating Israel as part of Europe so one could use IB/BA/AB/AY. Though, that would mean giving up on some great redemption prices to the east.

In the last two months alone I used AAdvantage miles to book LY awards for friends and family to BOM, BKK, HKG and PEK.

On the earning side, btw,

LY was always using W fare bucket for special sales as discount economy fare bucket. AAdvantage classified W as regular economy fare bucket which meant 100% miles accrual. Great sweet spot, I think, but now it's gone.