Originally Posted by
vasantn
I never claimed that it was.
Actually... ya' kinda did. At least that was implied in your language.
Originally Posted by
vasantn
<snip>Also, have you ever heard of customer acquisition costs (rhetorical question)? The businesses know that for every customer that "sticks", a hundred will just take the free or discounted introductory offer and walk away.
Of course I'm familiar with acquisition costs and marketing dollars. But again, what you seem to be missing (particularly for someone that has been around here as long as you have) is that these offers don't generally foresee people exploiting unintended loopholes to quickly achieve airline status. You can say its not your problem, it's the "vendors" but again, AA has created an incredibly complicated new program and contrary to what you keep saying, it's not clear that its fully documented yet or that said documentation won't be quickly changed/updated when unintended or misunderstood loopholes get exploited (Possible Example:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34019888-post234.html)
Originally Posted by
vasantn
Of course it's possible. It's also possible that they've done the math and are not as stupid as they might appear to be.
Honestly, given how long you've been around FT, a little surprised you can actually say this with a straight face...
Originally Posted by
vasantn
Again, I don't believe that following published rules is "playing with fire". As I also stated earlier, I wouldn't go to court over something like this. But I would reserve the option to take my business elsewhere or express my dissatisfaction on social media (I'm actually too lazy to do that but still stand by the principle).
This is the thing though, you just seem to be adamantly locked in that the "published rules" are crystal clear. They are not, they just aren't and only you and a few others here actually believe they are. There seems to be a misconception that every one of these earning opportunities must be base miles, but in many cases these offers are not clearly stating what are base miles and what are bonus miles. All of these shopping portals were setup to award redeemable miles, not EQM/Loyalty points. This is completely new. One has to assume that AA is going to charge more for "loyalty points" than for redeemable miles and I seriously doubt all of the various hundreds (thousands?) of vendors on AA shopping or hotels fully grok that.
For example, when I look at Rocketmiles I've seen properties offering 50,000 miles for a 5 night stay (10K per night). However, I don't see anywhere that actually guarantees that all 50K of those are LPs vs. some combination of LPs and bonus (i.e. redeemable) miles. Now, I'm not saying they aren't either, I'm saying I don't know (and frankly, neither do you) and that the documentation is not in fact crystal clear. The fact that AA says Rocketmiles earn LPs, does not imply, ipso facto, that every single point earned from them must be a loyalty point (vs a combination of LP/bonus).
Let's just put our thinking caps on for a moment. I've found hotels on Rocketmiles offering me 50K points for a five night stay, at places I'd already planned to stay. Do you really think AA's intent is to allow me to earn EXP (potentially for up to two years) with 20 hotel nights purchased through a booking portal? Does that seem sustainable? I completely understand that AA is trying to drive spend, but I seriously doubt there is enough margin on the commission from Rocketmiles to make that math work in the long run.
Originally Posted by
vasantn
[Edited to add:] I personally don't approve of people being greedy and totally abusing the process, because that spoils it for everyone and then none of us can "have nice things". I see nothing wrong with accepting an introductory offer and then cancelling it. In a couple of cases (e.g., Sunbasket), I actually liked the product and continued with the subscription. Giving out these types of offers is a customer acquisition cost for the vendor, and if they snare enough renewals it is worthwhile for them.
Believe it or not, on this we largely agree. I have no problem at all taking advantage of a trial offer and canceling. But, where we seem to differ, given that you specifically posted a URL to Frequentmiler, is I don't believe attempting to purchase "multiples" (e.g. 5 Verizon lines in the same day) falls within that spirit. Furthermore, I believe that we are likely to see that many of these generous "trial" offers on the AA shopping portal, begin to be a split of base points and bonus points, rather than 100% base points/LPs. So we may see "6700 miles" for an offer with The Motley Fool, but perhaps the actual dollar spend (e.g. $99) are the base/LPs and the remainder are just bonus/redeemable miles.
Contrary to how it may seem, I'm not trying to be a "debbie downer" here. I'm just saying that I don't believe all this is crystal clear and locked down, no matter how many times you say "published rules" regarding a program that technically doesn't even start until March 1st. So, we'll see how it plays out, but boy, the recent note from Rocketmiles is... interesting...
Regards