Originally Posted by
iahphx
Now those trips -- like most trips we'd consider "mileage runs" -- don't make much sense, unless your primary reason IS to go to Europe for the weekend. For obvious reasons, I'm less keen to fly long distances "for the miles." I don't see anything wrong whatsoever with a company deciding it didn't want non-profit-producing customers like me to game the system. Bad for me, but if Parker didn't take steps to stop behavior like this which cost his company money, he wouldn't be doing his job very well.
I'm not sure that I see "mileage runs" the same way you do. First of all, 100% of my travel is discretionary. I don't travel for work, so I don't need to travel anywhere if I don't want to.
As a (former) mileage runner, I gave AA money for distressed inventory (deep-discount seats that would otherwise be empty and would earn nothing for AA). In return, AA gave me funny money called points, which I used to purchase other distressed inventory (i.e., award seats that would otherwise be empty and earn nothing for AA).
So from my perspective, mileage runs are pure profit for AA, because I gave AA money for seats that would otherwise be empty. I do agree that now (unlike before the changes) mileage runs no longer make sense -- at least for me. AA still sells seats to the HVF that justify flying the plane, but the seats I used to give free money to AA for now fly empty.