The only two benefits I value of AA EXP are SWUs and waived fees for award fee changes and redeposit...Rest I can leave without
I am leisure traveler and last year my family of 3 all hit AA EXP (thanks to BA biz class deal). this year we are traveling AA solely to take advantage of SWUs and in turn re-qualify for next year. Double RDMs help offset lot of cost difference as sometimes AA fares are much higher than others
with SWU benefit cut in half, RDMs for economy fares will be drastically lower and hugh devaluation of biz class awards, next year it hardly makes sense to continue with AA for us. Mostly it will be better to wait for some occasional deal on premium fares and just go with those
my only hope is if partner earnings don't change a lot then we can fly some good QR fares and continue the train