AAir_head

Perhaps I'm mis-reading your intent, but I don't think this is accurate.

Families traveling with an AC member infrequently aren't going to be affected by this at all--the access rules allow "Immediate family (spouse, domestic partner and/or children under 18) or up to 2 guests" and there is no indication this will change. As to said families' ability (or inability) to behave in a fashion considerate of others, my experience has been that this is an exception rather than a rule and also varies culturally according to where you are/where the family is from.

My perception is that discounted Spouse/Domestic Partner memberships are (or were) aimed at couples that both travel frequently but often separately--the 2-for-1.8 (roughly) discounted membership was a reasonable approach to inducing folks to buy a second membership at a discount when they might not otherwise have done so (didn't think it was worth it, spouse/partner mostly used a different airline, etc.). Anyway it worked on us, but we're sure as heck not going to pay 1.6 times what we used to for the same membership with fewer clubs (nevermind it is actually more expensive to get/renew a household membership in the new pricing scheme than to get two individual memberships).

I *may* get the Citi card just for the club membership but am unlikely to charge a dime more than the annual fee depending on what ends up happening with the Aviator Silver card next year.

I can't figure out what AA's end-game is, but this just doesn't make sense to me--in my case, it is driving me to spend less with AA/it's credit card partners. I always had the feeling USAir was really focused on corporate travelers rather than individuals/small companies--maybe that's where they're going with this? Focus best product/experience on big-spenders/largest revenue source and fill in the empty space with bottom-dollar steerage-level service?