Oh, I hear you. As AA EXP for like 12 years now, this helped a lot as flying to Hawai'i and PNW are big for us, and crediting AS to AA was necessary. Was planning to remain EXP for the foreseeable future.
This changes that for us. While I can definitely see even more impact for someone like you in PDX, it changes our landscape as well to shooting for MVP 75K and falling back to AA Lifetime Plat. Not our ideal, but better than trying to do all of it on AA plus getting some sort of AS status.
Cheers.
Was an EXP for the similar amount of time and 75K or Gold since 2001. We (TH and myself) qualify based on AS metal alone, so we're okay. Anything else we fly = AA, BA or OW we still buy through AA or change our number to AA after ticketing (awards). As long was we can still get preferred seating, some semblance of redeemable miles on AA and lounge access. We do live in Seattle, so that helps. If this changes, we'll figure something else out.
I look at the ticket prices in and out of the WAS airports every week and while connecting through MCI or ORD would save me 40 bucks, the lack of any UG on the AA leg or the amount of time I would spend making the connection is/was not worth it for us.
The ability to redeposit tickets into my wallet, make changes at the last minute, actually get the lowest fare guarantee, redeposit awards at will and for free are definitely worth our AS loyalty.
One thing we have one in the past, and yes, it sucks, is to buy two tickets - take AS to one AA hub and then start the next journey on AA. Not sure how that works for the rest of you , but I rarely find starting in SEA saves me a ton of money.
just my .02 worth.
lala