Originally Posted by
ruckzac
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. Delta didn't get rid of their award chart to spite consumers – they got rid of it because not all flights within the contiguous 48 states are created equal. As someone who has both American and Delta miles, I much prefer Delta's system because I am frequently able to find reasonable, convenient mileage tickets on Delta to almost any domestic destination. In contrast, American almost never has 'saver' award availability on a convenient routing (let alone at all), and the 'anytime' availability is an absurdly bad deal.
Not to mention that the second 'problem' exists in the mileage chart system too – you could buy an 'anytime' award and have it drop to 'saver' after you purchase.
Do you think it's consumer-friendly to eliminate their ability to know what a "low" and "high" price is for award tickets? Remember, this is an
award ticket. This is assumed to be after the customer has made purchases and flown flights under normal supply-and-demand conditions to earn a kick-back. Why should the award also be subject to airline-determined "supply-and-demand"? Since demand-based pricing has been primarily used to raise (often dramatically) award ticket redemption prices, the motive is clear. It's not to say, "Thank you, here's your free flight to the destination of your choice!"
The lack of AA's saver awards is a different, also egregious example of bait-and-switch. However, at least with their system you know what the low and high prices are, and one can book the lowest-priced award flight without worry of the price dropping next week.
UA's upcoming changes might be the best of both. Still a sizable quantity of saver awards bound by chart prices. But the "standard" award now varies, with a maximum cap close to today's maximum, potentially opening up award prices in the gap between the two, similar to Delta's. That's a change DL could have done instead that would be much more consumer-friendly.