I’m happy too, as someone who tends to fly less frequently but usually on more expensive tickets. It seems to me like the new system has much more economic logic to it. When you think about it, why would an airline want to favor someone who flies 25 times in a year, spending $200 per ticket, over someone who flies once on a $5000 ticket? Most on Flyertalk don’t like the change, which is understandable because a large part of the community is all about optimizing the old, illogical system for their own benefit (“mileage runs” being a prime example; I suspect we won’t hear so much about “dollar runs” going forward). Also, the whole system of upgrades based on status is weird when you think about it. Imagine a restaurant saying the way to get steak is to be a very frequent customer, and when you arrive, if you are lucky, you might get “upgraded” from chicken to steak. Just sell steak to those who want steak, and those who want first class seats (as I usually do) can pay for them. And the logical way to deal with unoccupied first class seats is to have people bid for them at the gate, with cash, on the app. I made AA EXP last year based purely on credit card spend and I was almost completely unaffected, because I’m still not going to buy a coach seat and take a chance on getting upgraded when I can just buy a seat in first and guarantee that my whole party will be sitting together.