Originally Posted by
JacksonFlyer
..sigh...you are right, I did not read my post completely it was meant to be "fee waiver OR change of flight" not "for". Yes, you lose the ability to chose your seat but the main point of my comment is the gist was becoming that you had no benefits when that is not the case. I get that the benefits such as the ones listed above are very important to frequent flyers.
It's true that you don't lose all benefits.
The biggest benefit is the mile earning bonus and you keep that.
You also keep free checked bags and priority boarding, though, you can get that with the credit card anyway, so non-elites have access to that as well if they want (1 free bag at least with the CC -- the 2nd free checked bag as elite is occasionally useful)
Everyone values things differently, but, for me, the most valuable benefits are (in order)
1. Ability to select premium cabin seats
2. Elite mileage earning bonus
3. Waived change fees
4. Ability to make same day changes (free or not)
I don't really put any value in the rest of it (AS F is so bad that I don't really value it much more than a premium seat, unless I'm on a VX-configured airbus, and those are going away. Also since I have the CC now I don't really value the checked bag as an elite benefit, and I rarely care about a 2nd checked bag. I assign no value at all to priority boarding).
I value the premium seat at
#1 because if it's not free I'm going to pay for it, and usually the premium seat costs more than the value of the bonus miles earned (though not always, so on some flights I value the miles more). Also, the rare time that I travel with a companion, it saves 2x the fee.
If I book a saver fare I keep my 2nd-valued benefit but I lose everything else that I care about. So, for me, it's pretty horrible.