As for the fear of "exploiters," people "dumping" miles into Mileage Plan for status without flying AS, and "does this really affect me" questions, a few thoughts (and these opinions represent my own thoughts only):

• We are already living with quickly disappearing CX J and premium economy awards from the West Coast from this.
• For those who don't think people redeeming intra-asia in J affects them, think again - it affects you when hoping to fly in J all the way to your final destination (e.g. SFO-HKG-SIN).
  • However, if it gets insanely out of hand (and they do know and have publicly commented about these pain points), they can always bring the minimum AS segment requirement back if they need to.
• West coast residents also pour miles into other carriers via Chase and Amex everyday (and go after status on BA and some other carriers without flying them as their primary airline).
• The data always showed us (and the C-suite publicly shared) that elites care more about complimentary domestic upgrades than anything else hands down (folks in other countries not flying on AS won't impact this)
• Many higher tier elites don't care about redeemable miles for award travel as much as because the last thing they want to do on their time off is get on another airplane (on the larger carriers, they are more interested in using miles to upgrade). Not saying that applies to your situation, but there is truth to this.
• The choice awards will offer the old version of elite bonusses if people prefer the old program over a different new option.
• The BofA Visa EQM deal will make it a lot easier for more people to get status or achieve MVP or a higher status. This isn't just about boosting EQMs - it's about boosting EQMs while getting folks to direct their non-AS flights to AS.
  • This will not impact you on the days they are not flying (and they weren't flying that much before).
    • This MIGHT impact higher level elites on the days they are flying if they already had status and gained a higher status than you.
    • This will very likely impact some MVPs on the day those people are flying
  • I do think it will become more difficult for an MVP to get upgraded to First given the higher number of other elites. Higher level elites may find themselves further down the list.
    • This doesn't mean elites will never get an upgrade.
    • FWIW prior to allowing AA pax unlimited upgrades, even non-revs would pretty easily get First on a non-SEA route on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturday evenings, etc. after all the MVPs were upgraded