Originally Posted by
cova
For the flights I have been traveling for the past 12 months - all flights have been packed - with AA offering big $ to switch your flight - so many people were traveling. Those EXPs not traveling - I guess - did not realize that the flights were full. Last summer - airline profits went positive. Even Delta has been giving employee bonuses for big profits.
Domestic flights were packed because Covid bottled up travel demand and because international flights were scarce, both of which you must know already.
The implication that people who normally flew internationally pre-Covid should have started flying domestically is silly.
Also, Delta extended everyone's status and kept 2023 qualifying at the reduced levels, as compared with AA, which not only did neither, but raised qualifying above 2019's numbers.
Originally Posted by
cova
Point is the OP - did not even qualify for Gold this past year (only getting Gold by lifetime). So that person be should extended to EXP? That is the relevance. I think AA was overly generous with 2021 promos.
How many times do we need to go through this? The people who made EXP in 2019 did so at higher spend and higher mileage than the entitled 2021 crowd, but then weren't able to use most of the best benefits. The 2019 EXPs would not, in any way, be getting a big undeserved freebie by being extended once more now that the world is starting to re-open.