Since the pecking order for upgrades within each tier is now dependent on dollars spent in previous 12 months, I’m not banking on upgrades as a lifetime member once my work travel curtails. The other perks will still put AA ahead of an airline where I don’t have status but they may not always be a deciding factor when booking a flight with competitive options of other airlines.

Of course, they can also change the platinum benefits, as they’ve done to gold, and we could see the loss of intl lounge access, advance free MCE assignment, etc.