Absolutely. There are two pricing structures. a) Get the advertised AE benefits and pay 50% more for your fare, b) Don't, and earn 25% non status miles. The thing is too, it's not like the introduced a new lower fare status. They just kept the old prices, and removed perks.

Conversely, even 5 years ago, most fares on most lines earned 100% status miles.

While brand loyalty may be nearly non-existent, alliance loyalty is not. I was a perfect example. Numerous others are too especially if they're not spending their own money. In my case, I had a lot of flexibility with terms of destination and dates, so I could always find something on *A for a reasonable price. At those times, long haul on anything but *A wasn't even an option for me.

While I do think that loyalty programs have largely become garbage, the point is more that there is huge value there, but the problem seems to be how do you quantify it to shareholders? Free internet, a few drinks, snacks and a shower in lounges literally won $10k+/yr worth of travel from me in 2011-14. A bean counter could look at that and say "Look what we wasted on food and drinks!", compared to this year the books would say "Look how much costs for Lounge snacks are down!".