Originally Posted by flyingmusicianlax

That's a patently ridiculous example, cherry-picked to make the changes look okay. A large swath of FFers (and I would bet my left foot it's the large majority) are flying on mid-fares and lower. I fly CLT - LAX r/t weekly on mid-priced fares. Right now, I earn 8500 miles on an average $550 fare. After the changes? About 5000 miles ($460 x 11). A big cut when added up over a year and an even bigger cut when looking at redemption possibilities.

The ONLY winners in this are spending at least 19 cpm over an ENTIRE year. If you're not, you're getting screwed... hard. And, if you are, you're still getting screwed because your miles are worth much less starting in March.

Which begs the question: why stay with AA? I can fly with DL, get a baggage guarantee (I routinely wait 40 - 60 minutes for bags on AA), get much better operational performance, better food, more partner availability, more planes with in-seat power, IFE, etc, etc. Why in the world should I keep flying AA?

With this change, AA is bottom of the barrel.