I suspect that the low segment CK flyer (I have been CK for four years and have never flown more than ~14-16 segments in one year) is disadvantaged by this, but it isn’t that common and won’t change their flying behavior in any material way. It’s worse this year though as I have a million LPs (mostly AA card spend), so don’t get any of the choice awards even though I maxed out the tiers.
Maybe I need to do a segment run (though I guess that undercuts my premise that it doesn’t change flying behavior). Diabolical AA!