milypan

IIRC, most of the Premium rollout occurred after those partnerships had already been gutted (and certainly for DL).

eponymous_coward

Disagree, they'll fly it for the same reasons they'll continue to fly SEA/PDX-DFW/ORD/PHX even though they could just dump those markets to AA.

What this DOES mean I think is there is ZERO likelihood AS will ever have lie-flats on domestic flights. They'll continue NYC/BOS service because it's a top 10 destination from CA and it's required to be meaningful in those markets (plus AA's Y capacity on A321Ts sucks, they can serve the Y/"leisure enthusiast" market as an LCC and let AA skim cream in J/F). They're just going to leave all that juicy lie-flat revenue to the big boys and B6 and keep doing their thing.

It's probably not the same because DL allegedly wanted AS to dump their relationships with non-SkyTeam partners like BA/CX/QF. This apparently makes no such requirement. oneworld is a lot more agnostic about partnerships outside alliances than ST and *A are, apparently: QF and EK are partners, CX and AC are partners, etc.

Moebius

This is a good point — I’d forgotten about the exclusivity proposed by DL in their “offer”

jjangoo

Is there a source on this? I'd like to read

Tack

If MP stays mileage based, I'd switch to MP. It wouldn't effect my flying too much and would give me far better choices on the West Coast because I could now book AS almost exclusively. (Something I've missed over the last year ish?) My international flying, which is mostly QR and BA would stay the same. As would my AA flights to the southern half of the US. At the end of the day, my spend might end up close to what I do with AAdvantage, but it appears possible to maintain Emerald in OW even if I come up short. If I'm missing something, looking at MP and it's requirements let me know. Cheers.

WrightHI

Tough crowd. I'm thrilled to see this, because I like flying AS and this will give me better alternatives where they don't fly, or don't fly as conveniently. If it means that Mileage Plan goes from a lot more generous to somewhat more generous, so be it. I'm earning miles faster than I can find high-value uses for them anyway.

eddiehuang97

I think it really depends on how MVP qualification changes after this. I don't know how many would switch since if they fly AA a lot they would not get comp upgrades on AA. If a lot of AA elites switch to AS then it might be a problem(but that would great for AS)

flytoeat

Absent an opt-out provision contemplating an AS move to One World, there is a contractural agreement that must be fulfilled. Just as AF/KL continued until the expiration of that agreement, SQ partnership should be around until the end of the current agreement, if not longer.

milypan

I think what you're missing is that if you're a low-spend EP, then your QR, BA, and AA flights are probably going to earn negligible AS EQMs when credited to MP. But perhaps I misinterpreted what you said.

It's not so much that current AA elites would switch to AS. It's that I could not, with a straight face, recommend to any of my colleagues or friends who are frequent flyers ex-SFO that they switch to AS. The new alliance may change that.

BayAreaTrvler

Well, this alliance is off to a great start - at least they could be accurate.....

CoMooter

AS offering to OW (i.e. AA) as part of their negotiations to join that they will ‘plan’ on doing certain things to their FF program to ‘align with OW’ is not collusion. It is an ‘offer’ to OW. OW making it a condition of joining - or AA demanding it - would be in that direction though.

In any case, it is fair to assume that AS has already proposed something that AAllay concerns from other AAirlines in OW that they do not need to worry about losing huge numbers of members in their (crAAppy) FF progrAAms to MileagePlan if AS does join.

In other words, AS’s FFP is going to become a little less ‘special’ as this moves forward - there is no way it stays the ‘same’ and will become devalued in many ways in ‘exchange’ for OW.

Part of the ‘deal’ since (dis)AAdvantage is still one of the strongest revenue points for AA even as sucky as it has become. They would never agree to it unless they felt there will be no great reason for their captives to escape.

travelinmanS

I’m in the EK lounge now finishing up the final leg of a trip that will net me just about enough miles for a one way Asia-US Biz class ticket on CX.

I think this announcement will be the beginning of the end of this kind of bargain. I’m basically getting one free flight for every 2 I take and I love AS for this but figured it would end eventually.

1353513636

I think people are panicking way too much at this announcement, suggesting that the award charts will disappear this weekend etc.; if it were Marriott management I might expect that but Alaska management tends to be a little more level-headed. I actually expect that MP will stick around in its current form mostly, maybe with a unified chart for all OW airlines and possibly less bonuses for F/J on their partners. AA and AS will not be entering into a JV nor sharing revenue, so unless part of the agreement for AA to allow AS to join OW was that they gut their FF program, I doubt it will happen,, however, it does seem like a possibility and if that were true it would be very dishonest for AS not to share it right now. Also, AA doesn't have control over what happens to MileagePlan other than what they can get AS to contractually agree to.

I liken the AS/AA partnership to something like LH/A3 in Europe; A3 feeds LH's long haul flights and gives LH gives A3's FFs a long haul airline to earn/burn on, so the partnership is mutually beneficial, but A3 basically owns Greece so LH would prefer to partner with them rather than starting a lot of their own flights. Certainly LH is a bit irked at the high mileage accrual rates and low status requirements for A3, but they can't force A3 to change it and A3 has zero motivation to do that as they need to incentivize people to actually fly with them because A3 FFs flying LH don't really benefit A3 and they also make money selling miles (sound familiar).

I think this AA/AS partnership could actually draw people, particularly SAN/SFO people, from UA/WN to either AA or AS depending on one's travel needs. I imagine we'll see 100% earning on AS flights but not AA flights, so you have an incentive to fly AS whenever possible, but you can still get benefits while flying AA when AS can't get you there, and also they'll get OW elites to choose their flights over UA/WN since they'll get status benefits, as well as additional feed from more partners. AA hardly makes any award space available anyway so I'd be surprised if an award chart devaluation was an important topic in the AA/AS partnership. Also, alliance elites don't typically get benefits like upgrades and premium class seating, so the upgrade lists getting longer would only be caused by more people being drawn to MileagePlan, which Alaska desperately needs to survive, and this would not serve as a backdoor to AA status as AS elites flying AA won't get many of the benefits that AA elites get flying AA.

I imagine partnerships with KE and LATAM will go soon, not because of the AA partnership but because Delta tells them to cut AS as a partner.

Travelchurner

This is the end of MileagePlan's generous award chart with JL and CX!!!

....!!!

CoMooter

All the Big 3 are going to be hemorrhaging cash flow this year due to Asia issues - I don’t see them making too many ‘middle finger’ money losing moves right now domestically.