Orwaid

Hi -

"Complimentary" = free without charge of any kind.

"Complementary" = serving to fill out or complete ... or two or more people or entities mutually supporting each other by providing something lacking in the other person/people or entity/entities.

RAD_PDX

I feel mutual support from the Fruit & Cheese Platter and it provides me with happiness, something I'm often lacking when hungry

Orwaid

Hi -

Well played my friend.

WrightHI

Obviously the right approach. I'm tempted to argue for putting sockeye ahead of king, but that's maybe a little bit too idiosyncratic for a mass market program.

Visconti

Sockeye is far and away the best one, in my view.

KonaKai

I think it will be interesting to see how many elite flyers are left after all the status extensions end this year. I've been 75k for several years but since Covid I haven't flow a single business mile since March 2020 with no idea when I will fly again for work. I've got to think a large majority of business travelers are in the same boat and are just as efficient working from home going forward. I qualified for 75k the first year it was rolled out and I think at the time there were only 2500 of us. So I wonder how many will realistically hit 100k the first year and how many will qualify for 75k this year after the extension ends.. I bet the number is smaller than we think.

Eurynom0s

The one single time I was able to use one, I was on a train on December 31 and went looking for flights I was pretty sure I was going to be taking the following year (with travel to some specific events in mind, it was easy to just search around the dates of those events). I found one in October and booked it with the GGU. The day before the flight, after I had already checked in and gotten my boarding pass showing me in first, I got another "here's your boarding pass" email showing that I had been kicked back to economy. I was especially unhappy considering this was for a DCA-LAX transcon, it's not like it was for some short west coast hop.

jrl767

my wife got downgraded at the gate (with BP in hand for 2D, DCA-SEA) a couple years ago; they gave her an exit row aisle, a comp F&C plate, and 3000 miles as compensation, but she was NOT happy ... I emailed requesting reissue of the GGU and an additional 12k miles for her (since she would have spent 15k miles for the UG), and eventually had to call in to even get the GGU

Flying for Fun

I bet the number who qualify for 75K this year will be a much larger number than you think. Many, who had never held the 75K Elite level, flew MRs in the fall to reach 75K with the Bonus EQM of up to 2.63× miles flown on cheap F fares. You could earn 75K from zero by flying at most 50K in any fare class to as little as 28,518 miles in F(F, P & I).

AS eliminated the additional requirement of higher thresholds for flying AS+Partners and extended the EQM Bonus through June 30th. I don't see that lowering the ranks of 75Ks. Additionally, even AA Elites, especially those not earning elevated EQD on international Partner segments offering a multiple to spend, will be vying for 75K to maintain OWE without having to meet the already reduced but still burdensome revenue component.

75K & 100K is a lot of miles on AS only. I would not have earned 75K had I not been able to qualify with 90K AS+Partners EQM. If you are already earning 90K, the step to 100K is really insignificant. I think many more 75K Elites on AS+Partner segments probably had more than 100K than those that squeak by at 90K. I would have organically earned 75K on AS in 2020 but that was only because of the EQM from Credit Card spend and the 50% EQM bonus. Over the last three years, I have earned 388K EQM. I don't think meeting a 100K requirement is going to be difficult for a lot of 75Ks.

James

pmblinn

I don't disagree with anything stated above. It's interesting, though. 75K AS BIS is certainly achievable, as many here can attest to. But the jump to 100K, I think for most of us, requires partner travel. So does the 6-seg requirement become an entanglement? Does this bifurcate the population?

rune87

Honestly...I think they need to make it like a 16-20 segment requirement to really weed out the partner portion and ensure they are getting real AS travellers. I easily do that every year in a mix of transcon and coastal flying. If you are a dedicated AS flyer, that segment count really isn't that hard. And hoenstly..if youve already hit 75k, another 25k is but 3 trips in F. Ultimately its going to come down to what are the real benefits of 100k.

chrisl137

You could do it with a lot of transcons. ~20 round trip coast to coast flights would get you there, but that's not a lot of fun (except maybe for FlyingForFun).

It's also possible with a lot of domestic F. But if you're flying everything in paid F, do most of the status benefits matter that much?

Thichbay

When AS runs 50% EQM promo, it is a clear sign that AS wants people to do MR for status (probably to make up for the lost of business travelers.) EQM has no value except only for getting elite status and therefore the EQM promo does not benefit "general public travelers" either (why dont AS have RDM bonus?). True, there will more people getting 75k by doing MR, but I think the number will be insignificant compared to the lost of business elites.
Vaccines is here, eventually we will vaccinate the whole world but it does not mean that business traveling will be back to pre-covid level. So maybe in the future, most 75k or 100k MVP are people in this forum hehe

tjs121

Something also to consider is that AS currently does not have any way to add EQM’s through credit card spend while AA does. Even if it’s only 20,000 max EQM (I think) it would nearly close the gap from 75k to 100k

Thichbay

An average 4 seg transcon in F rt will get you ~10k-12k EQM. So people only need 10 rt in F which is very doable (2 weekends/month x5). I would say many people who doing MR for AS probably value only 2 things: Emerald status & RDM bonus.