Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
The fact that they would do something like this (and also the EY rule changes) seems to suggest that specific award levels aren't going away on AA, because without award charts (see UA), they could just set an arbitrary price for any route/date. But then again, maybe the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions at this point about EY and AA other than maybe award ticket flights on EY provide AA with lower costs than some other AA redemption partners do — maybe even lower costs than QR flights — for the relevant market.
Removing published award charts or parts thereof doesn’t mean that the FFP-owning airline is without award charts of sort. DL pulled its published charts in ways and yet there are still award charts used by DL; and non-published award chart pricing remains relevant for awards on partner airlines even as its way less relevant to using DL miles for DL flights than it used to be.
Redeeming miles on partner airlines tend to stick to specific award levels (and binary availability logic) in a way that redeeming miles on the program owner’s own airline may not. It’s been the case with redeeming DL miles, for example. And UA and AA seem to play “Follow the Leader” when it comes to airline loyalty program changes.
Originally Posted by
SeeBuyFly
The EY changes mean USA-AUH demand will increase, so it is bad for India flyers.
USA-India flying passengers getting another option to use miles to get to/from India without an award travel cost hike in miles isn’t a bad thing for this US-India flyer. While I could see this change with award travel on EY increasing USA-AUH demand, the potential easing of pressure on demand to fly QR is useful to me.