Originally Posted by
AAFlyerSPGStayer
Reminder: equally useless for you, not necessarily for everyone.
I wish they had made these changes earlier. I would have a lot more miles in my account if they had! For example, I just booked a ticket with a fare of $615 and a distance of 1,100 miles. As a Platinum under the old system, I will earn 3,250 currency miles. Under the new system, I would have earned 4920 currency miles! And now, if I make EP, I will be towards the top of the upgrade list when I use those miles for a leisure trip or purchase a deep discount fare myself.
For customers like me, the AA program was at a competitive disadvantage versus UA and DL before these changes. If I was a customer somewhere like Chicago, New York, or LA, I might have switched in response.
I don't think there was ever any argument that there are people who benefit from this change. The consensus seems to focus on people who fly on expensive short flights.
Long haul loses out and even flying premium doesn't help much there due to the earning caps and such. Just comparing my last international trip booked in D/P, I would have gotten at least 10k fewer miles under the new program.
I think the "rewarding our best customers" is just a smoke screen for an overall gutting of the program - from flying at least. I'm sure they'll continue to give out miles from CCs like candy though.
