Originally Posted by
newyorkgeorge
On an Award ticket you are redeeming miles for travel. Why in the world would AA award MM? When you buy something at 50% off at a department store does the department store credit the entire retail price to an awards program? Or you have buy one, get one free does the department store award you two purchases?
I think if anything MM will ultimately turn into a dollar spend program rather than miles flown.
Your argument only makes sense for why it wouldn't count towards EQD spend. And many times a 'buy one get one' deal is actually receipted as two purchases at half off vs. as one purchase.
Also, hotel programs typically credit a free night towards whatever 'night count' they have. I think it makes perfect sense to credit someone's trip towards MM status if the purpose of the MM program is to recognize people that travelled a MMs with the airline. (which yes is a joke, since I would wager the vast majority of MM and 2MM holders have flown quite a bit less than 1 million actual miles because of accruals under the old system)
Originally Posted by
millionmiler
AA didn't make the change to make the program to make more sense. It made the changes to limit the number of miles that count so that fewer people would reach the limits. They were successful in achieving their goal.
Although I have no information on this I would still guess that AA will eventually make it even more restrictive.
Yes, but that isn't the point. I am only making the point that this "of course" talk is nonsense. Like you say, the whole program doesn't make sense. 1 M BIS miles is a lot of miles
I think if AA wants a program they should make it fair. Right now, the program only counts BIS miles not associated with award travel but has its rolls probably quite overweighted with people that qualified mostly on non-BIS miles. I think it is ridiculous to only give a lifetime gold status for someone that truly puts a milllion BIS miles on the airline (that is 200 round trip trans con flights; >400 roundtrip flights for us in the midcon or who travel more regionally)
And yes, They should just match the program to their program in a more direct way, but it is hard for me to see how it can be 'more restrictive' considering someone that earns gold with 25,000 miles a year would need to earn that status for
40 years before AA would grant them that lifetime status. Someone could be Exec plat for more than 10 years before being given lifetime gold (these calculations are hand wavy, because it is easier to get 100K EQM than 100,000 miles due to ticket multipliers). The system is a joke in terms of encouraging anyone to stick with AA over the long haul. The mountain is tall and the reward is poor.
Something like this would work:
2M EQM + 200K EQD lifetime ExP (would take a minimal ExecPlat 17-20 years at that level to earn)
1.5M EQM + 150K EQD lifetime PlatPro (would take a minimal PlatPro17-20 years at that level to earn)
1M EQM + 100K EQD Lifetime Plat (would take a minimal Plat 17-20 years at that level to earn)
500,000 EQM + 50K EQD Lifetime Gold (would take a minimal Gold 17-20 years at that level to earn)
Here the mountain is still high, but it is actually somewhat doable.
The current lifetime golds and plats can keep their lifetime status, but at least new members who stick with AA for 17 years at a certain level can keep that status.