Originally Posted by
Stripe
Regarding AA having too many elites, yes they do, but so do other airlines currently. It's a legacy of Covid-related grace periods and lower qualification thresholds that are working their way out of the system. When AA set those levels they guessed how quickly travel would ramp up and they clearly underestimated. That has shown up not just in the FF program but in other parts of the operation. There should (hopefully) be fewer EXPs after February.
DL and UA both set their EXP tiers at $15k for 2023 qualification (and I think UA also had some bonuses to PQP as well?), so AA's setting EXP at >$18k for requalification and $27k for new qualification (for earning by flying at least) seems much smarter in retrospect.
Originally Posted by
EXP100
For sure the qualifications for this year were very low ($9K for EXP). I suspect that will change going into the next elite year. That being said the big unknown are cc holders getting status through cc spend. Add into upgrade offers and upgrades might still remain tough even for EXPs. I'm missing upgrades on E175s, off peak business flying, and non prime routes. It's the new reality.
How do you get $9K for EXP? Even if you're requalifying it'd be 200000LP/11LP/1$ = $18182. That's the highest of the US3 for this year.