Flying for Fun

I agree the requirement is small, so is 24 for MVPG100K, 30 is easy for AA too at 2½ segments per month.

There is still arbitrage for AA Elites to fly AS and earn Loyalty Points based on distance instead of spend as well as earn segments so I wouldn't be surprised to see more AA Elites in AS F in markets where both AA & AS are options. It could relate to fewer upgrades or more competition for upgrades.

James

notquiteaff

Or short AS domestic hops.

ashill

Note that if you buy AS, credit to AA, you'll get either 867 or 1733 LPs, depending on whether it's an X/O/G or V/S/N/Q fare on AS. So either way Mileage Plan wins, but you may be better off buying AS even crediting to AA, and the difference isn't so stark. But you only get that 1239 LP if that $176 is before taxes, rather than what you pay including taxes; the $176 fares on that route I see are only $138 of base fare, so you'd earn 966 LPs from an AA ticket – an even clearer win for buying AS if crediting to AAdvantage. But as you say, for this flying pattern and if you get as much out of MVP as out of AA Gold, Mileage Plan appears to be a clear winner. This is clearly not the kind of customer AA wants to reward with elite status.

milypan

Uh, those are purchased with RDMs, not EQMs. And an AS or AA elite didn’t get access to any special buckets of award tickets on CX/JL/QF.

As I think more about this change, I’m increasingly likely to “”defect”” from AS MP to AAdvantage in the future. My average CPM tends to be low, so in recent years AS MP worked better for me than the US3 programs. But this changes things.


Under pre-COVID travel patterns I’’d probably earn ~60k LP on flights. CC spend is no problem for me, but I view it as an opportunity cost of roughly 1% vs charging to Citi DC. So basically I’’d be paying ~$650 for PP or ~$1400 for EXP, which already sounds reasonably attractive.


What makes it even more attractive is that it is easier to concentrate CC spend than flying. So, for example, I could start at Platinum on 1 Mar 2023, reach PP by Apr 2023, EXP by late 2023, and then retain EXP through Feb 2025. Then start the cycle again. (Of course, the one thing we can be certain of is the rules will have changed again by 2025.)


My actual flight patterns wouldn’t’ change as long as AS remains in OW —— majority AS, with some AA and other OW partners. It also occurs to me that an added benefit of substituting CC spend for flight earnings is that I could actually use some of the huge pile of RDMs I have, since I wouldn’t’ always need to be earning EQMs for requalification!

nineworldseries

Is Flyertalk really all that busy and cluttered nowadays that this one thread is going to bury useful information for you? Compared to like 2017, this forum is dead. I welcome any remotely relevant discussion.

olouie

Very accurate, FT is mostly a ghost town these days, I welcome the chats since this most likely impacts AS flyers with the new close partnership with AA and how exp will now get upgrades before 75k.

thatmikereed

For my specific travel patterns and my specific status offer, it's perfect. I expect to return to travel more next year, but mostly to west coast/seattle destinations (from AUS). AA has certainly expanded here, but so has AS, with some interesting routes on AS metal. I'm completing a status promo where it's round-trips that count (not segments or miles or spend), and as an MVP I have a 100% upgrade rate on my AUS-LAX turns on the E175 on "off days" during the week. Even if I didn't, Premium would be just fine.

I'll end up with 75K this year, through next year, and may re-qual 75K or might drop to Gold - just depends on how the year unfolds. But even at an MVP:Gold comparison, MVP is so much better for me than Gold in nearly every way, including Premium seats earlier than MCE @ Gold, and in earnings/utility of earned miles.

I'll probably still do an AA mileage run for LT Gold next year as I'm really close... and any flights I do book on AA I'll credit to AA because they're likely to be low fare classes.

notquiteaff

This year was a bit unusual because of rollovers and limited travel for us, but my nearly 70k EQM break down as follows:

AS 22k (incl 6k rollover)
AA 22k
BA 26k

5k will come from BofA to get me to 75k. I did not expect to actually go from MVP to 75k in a pandemic year.

By segments AS leads, but two round trips in paid premium cabins to Europe on BA and AA brought in the bulk of the EQM this year.

It’s difficult to predict my travel for next few years. Literally nothing is booked yet, but I really need do my own analysis of the impact of these changes going forward. Of course, making a switch now would mean not actually using my hard-earned MVP75k status…

Have never really paid attention to AA’s program in the past, so I need to learn about it to see if their SWUs (for example) would be useful (as a UA 1K their SWUs were a major reason for me to work towards top status every year). Looks like I have some studying and spreadsheet analysis to do. The partnership between AS and AA basically gives me two very different domestic programs to choose from without actually having to choose who I fly (which is more dictated based on routes anyway).

nineworldseries

Also a combo AS/AA flyer, prefer AS, but they only have one route from my home airport (CMH). These AA changes only seem to benefit me, because for the first time, I'll probably be able to achieve AA Gold and AS MVP next year.

First, I credit 100% of flights to AS. As a hybrid flyer, even booking O class economy on AA, crediting to AA makes zero sense. Here's a good example:

I'm flying CMH-DFW-HNL in January on AA in paid O. I paid $208 for this fare (yeah, I know, super cheap, but it also overnights in DFW).

Crediting to AA: $208 * 5 = 1,040 AA miles for a 4,710 mile flight.

Crediting to AS: (500 + (3,784*.25)= 1,446 AS miles for a 4,710 mile flight (before any bonuses)

Why would anyone in their right mind credit this flight to AA?

So, I'll try to make MVP on AS through segments or maybe miles, and I'll put $30k on an AA credit card from 1/1/22 - 2/28/23 and get AA Gold as well without crediting a single flight to AA.

Kacee

I'd already decided to focus on AS over AA next year, since I can now get OWE through AS, and much prefer flying and dealing with AS. These changes to the AA program just confirmed that decision.

notquiteaff

Is there any significant benefit to having both AS MVP and AA Gold given that they are partners and offer benefits to partner elites? If you are literally not crediting any flights to AA, how are you going to use your AA status?

Would it be better to combine the flying and credit card spending in one program (AA presumably, unless AS continues to offer EQM for card spending) to reach a higher level?

thatmikereed

No. And you're right, they're not.

If that spend puts you into a higher status, sure. Otherwise, no. Put it somewhere else that earns better rewards.

notquiteaff

Right, it’s worth calculating the opportunity cost of spend put on the AA card that could earn more with another card. That’s equally true for the current AS BofA EQM offer. The more difficult part is the estimate the value of the benefit of higher status. In my case, I am putting $7500 of spend on my AS card to get the missing 5200-ish EQM for 75k. Without having the slightest idea of my flights next year, I have a hard time estimating the benefit of that higher status. I am just going with my gut feel that a few guaranteed PC seats, a couple of F upgrades, more RDMs and the gift of status to my wife will make it worth it.

Visconti

In the past, I have found them, far and away, the single best perk of any FF program, with the caveat that I've never been either CK or GS. Before the pandemic, assuming anyone with any kind of flexibility, it wasn't unusual to find, say, a bargain basement RT from NA to HKG for about $400 - $500, and utilize SWUs to upgrade them into business class. Not sure about now or moving forward, while they were based on availability, they didn't strike me as exceedingly restrictive.

Assuming you were going to pay or considered paying for business class, the 4 SWUs are probably worth around $5K - $7K, in my view.

thatmikereed

Exactly the same reason I'm paying out of pocket for my 75K Status Challenge. I'll get everything except the 50K RDM, and I expect to travel more next year.

Moving my PERSONAL travel spend off of Chase Ultimate Rewards @ 5x would be hard to justify.

My business spend (which goes on my card, but through their travel portal)? That's a toss-up between 2% cash back and an airline card IF it helps me with a status hump.