Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Except it's not just USA-based airlines devaluing their charts, so that fails as an explanation. AC? Check. BA? Check. AF/KL? Check. LH? Check. AV? Check. NH? Check.
That's a lot of airlines that aren't AA/DL/UA who've devalued their award charts.
As for the ME 3, since a lot of people think that might be a saving grace... tell me, what EQM/RDM do you get on deep discount EK Y? (I'll help: not a lot.)
The whole industry is moving away from a model of "buy a ton of cheap Y and we'll treat you like royalty". The salad days of FT being a way to turn $99 transcons into Krug and caviar are going behind us. C'est la vie.
The frequency, scope and scale of the devaluations has not been consistent over time. Nor has it been consistent across different markets.
The US airline program loyalty market has had more competition until it came down to just the US3 for the most part. Those non-US airline program markets you bring into the discussion (and I've had an account with all of those for years too) have had less competition for far longer (when it comes to airline loyalty programs party to Oneworld/Skyteam/StarAlliance) than the US.
Less competition amongst loyalty programs --> worse devaluations for loyalty program customers? More so than not. And now AA is making that more clear too via this official announcement about the program changes next year.