I wholeheartedly agree. For me AS is still where the best value is. :)

James

plenty. even in USA, AA and DL do

Ditto. And for largely different reasons.

You seem to be mostly a "fly lots of places at the lowest cost and best seats" kind of flyer, and I'm more "I have to fly these places, and I want upgrades, or at least Y+ to make it more pleasant". Despite all the cuts from what was a *really* generous FF program, it's still a very good experience. I have an LAX-BOS RT coming up and unfortunately UA corporate contract fares were enough less than AS that I'm stuck on UA and being thoroughly reminded why I prefer AS.

Are Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica not international flights? ;) I follow what you are saying but you can also reach 1MM on AS by flying 1000 BLI-SEA returns and actually fly only 184,000 miles. :) lol

James

I am at 959,732 so far with 40,268 miles to go to reach MM status and those miles have been earned on LOTS of NW and West Coast flying, with maybe 2 trans cons per year, and 3 midwest trips per year. So, it can be done, just little bits at a time compared to others. Since Ive only flown internationally 4 times since 2010 the lack of international (other than Mexico, Costa Rico, or Canada) doesn't bother me. I love telling folks about when I first started flying for work (in 2006/2007), I was told my trips would be about 150 miles from home (SEA) - but that year I made MVP, so obviously my company's measurement of a mile is vastly different than most (LOL)

But AA and DL only give bottom tier when you hit MM. UA and AS give a mid tier because it is all on their metal.

For some of us here, if the flight doesn't have a cabin with lie flat seats and luxurious bedding all while drinking Dawm Pair In Yone, it isn't really international ;)

I've in effect done that (NYC for a weekend in February is surprisingly affordable), but Saver Fares start killing the value of that. My travel is pretty discretionary. My inclination is to just stop pursuing status on AS for my decisions, evaluate the options as I go along, and let the chips fall where they may

That is a reasonable decision.

The reason that I don't make that decision is because when I do fly that transcon, I want to sit in a Y+ seat. I will pay for it if I have to, but it's $100+ each way. Getting it for free saves a lot of money.

Also, again, getting 10k miles on that transcon makes the net cost of the trip very, very low.

But it's not free if I am paying $30 or so surcharges for Main for all AS flights I have to take to retain AS status, in order to make my AS regional tickets still work like WN ones (free change or cancel), for markets where I can compare AS/WN prices directly (nonstops where I am relatively indifferent to a coach or first class seat for one to three hours), I value the ability to cancel or change trips more than polenta and kale, and I don't have the nose in the air attitude about WN that permeates a lot of FT. Of course the discussion changes if WN nukes those features, but they have held very fast in making themselves a unique value proposition in the US market- far more so than AS has with "we're going to copy the Big Three except be maybe 5-10% better".

The existence of Saver is most certainly a significant surcharge on retaining AS elite benefits I value for me, and with the relative ease of getting miles from credit cards (or just using 2% cashback to outright BUY miles) I think I might be able to generate the miles I need to fly premium outside the USA (which is mostly what I think is nice about AS's program now that Saver has infested everything) without caring too much about AS status retention. B6 would probably work for me going to NYC/BOS out of SEA. Heck, WN one-stops in DEN/MDW might not be too terrible. My sampling of DL and AA has been relatively OK.

This is what I have so far with 2 years of flying AS domestically:

Your progress towards elite status

Year-to-date Alaska miles Flown: 40,037miles
Year-to-date Alaska/partner* qualifying miles Flown:40,037miles
Year-to-date Alaska/partner* qualifying segments Flown: 56
Alaska miles toward million mile flyer Flown: 71,311miles
****928,689 miles to go****

For me AS MM probably won't happen in my lifetime! I won't say never however it is VERY unlkely LOL

UA million miler is star alliance gold.

AS million miler?

MVP Gold 4Lyfe.

I'm at 425k over about 15 years. My travel varies from MVP to MVPG. But it's been a lot of nibbling to death by ducks from back when buying tickets online came with bonuses, the debit card was useful, and so on. So shooting for Million Miler, I figure by 2035 or so we'll be like this.