Originally Posted by
backprop
I think the moderators are actually of like mind.
I was a blog comment moderator - not a forum moderator or a writer, which are completely separate - and most everyone from that time has since quit. The few that are left are pretty much CE's lackeys. I got an email message from one recently who had also left, who called CE a "thin skinned egomaniac."
When I did blog moderation, it was literally a 24/7 discussion among the 20 or so moderators about individual posts, minutiae about rules, and policy. I'd wake up and regularly have 40 or 50 emails from the previous midnight. Sometimes more.
Some of the moderators were very nice people, but I can't help but think they were in some way mentally ill or at least maniacal about their "job." About two days into it, I just wrote a rule that shunted all of the emails to the trash. My moderation consisted of deleting outright spam. And ultimately, none of it mattered.
Moderators were instructed to delete even helpful fact checking posts. So if someone said "Hey I notice you said in the post that the airline's cancellation policy wasn't posted on its site, but here's a link to it," it would be deleted to protect his thin skin. More than one of those and the user would be blacklisted.
I noticed they just underwent another major overhaul with CE throwing a hissy fit and turning off comments again.
Originally Posted by
LINDEGR
I tend to agree. Reinstatement costs AA nothing from a cash outflow perspective and they happily booked revenue from mileage sales (assuming from cc usage and/or partners) and its just a nice thing to do. AA management is rather cold-blooded anymore...
It is easy to think AA should have more compassion and do the "right" thing. But then on the other hand, there are so many people who have issues in their lives, be it own illness or family members' or whathave you - if each and everyone who has forgot the "little" things and then as for forgiveness - where is that going to end?
When you are diagnosed with serious illness - you will need to be much more organized than before on virtually everything in your life, including having lists to keep track of all your assets - from physical to tangible, so your next kin would know what to do should something bad happens. FFP balances are some form of "assets".
AA usually would do the right thing if you have a ticketed travel but you cannot make it due to own illness, family members' illness, death etc etc. They more often than not, just ask you to submit proof and they take care of the rest.
As for the cost to AA - well, from the accounting point of view, 90K forfeited would be 90K liability off their books. Given the rate AA sells its miles, it may be an incentive for them NOT to waive the fee when miles expired.
These days there are gazillion things to keep the 18 months perpetually rolling, really tough to find excuse to let one's miles expire.