richarddd

The bankruptcy filing does moot the issue, so we'll never know what a court would do with the matter if it was presented in another context. The Gunn letter did reserve the right to cancel the entire AAdvantage program following notice.

If, as some have stated in this thread, the old miles are covered by a court case or settlement, that would obviously control over the words of a letter.

Given the ease of drafting and filing a complaint, you're likely to win that bet.

FWAAA

Your posts do not reflect an understanding of the negotiated legal settlement that caused AA to honor these miles and the old award chart for the past 23 years. AA reserved no right to modify the old miles or the old miles award chart as AA agreed that the old miles would never expire and that they could be redeemed against the old award chart.

wdbaldwin

I have a little over 110,000 old miles

I'd appreciate suggestions on best use of these miles. I am thinking that if the 75a award is valid for 2 RT's to Hawaii that would be great. With 35k remaining, any thoughts on best use of that? Has anyone confirmed 75a good for Hawaii?

Once I pull the trigger on 75a, does anyone know if date changes would be allowed. Say I do the 75a for 2rt's DFW to Hawaii, traveling 6/15/13 to 6/22/13, could I change travel dates AFTER November 1, 2012?

Taking it another step, and maybe a tad beyond the pale, should I cancel and request redeposit of miles into account, does AA deposit 75k + 25% or just 75k? My guess is only 75 k and maybe a call to EXP might get me the extra 25%, if there is an EXP desk at that point!

Not really that concerned on the rededposit but more on allowable changes and best use of 110k miles.

I'm not upset with AA on changing the old miles rule. Just wish I had another 10,000 miles to get 2 business class tickets to Europe!

Thanks for your help FT'ers!

FWAAA

AA always reserved the right to make changes, but the issue in the litigation that caused the settlement (and prompted Gunn to mail us that letter) was the ability to make changes that the plaintiffs characterized as retroactive (capacity controls, new redemption levels and mileage expiration on already-earned miles).

Some background can be found in the Wolens decision:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1286.ZO.html

sbedelman

Ownership isn't the point I was trying to make. My response was to the poster who said I should be satisfied that AA gave me 23 years to use my miles when they promised they would never expire.

Never expire means, well never expire. 23 years is less than never so my analogy to demonstrate that.

Owning the miles has nothing to do with it. AA agreed the miles wouldn't expire. Now they are saying they do. Breach of contract.

sbedelman

Not true.

sbedelman

I certainly hope so.

BTW Chapter 11 does not give a company the unilateral right to abrogate an agreement. They can petition the court but the ultimate decision is up to the judge. I don't see anything to indicate that this is the case here.

Futhermore AA isn't canceling the AAdvantage program, something I'd think they can do since they only agreed the miles would not expire. Of course if they did that people would be howling.

Which is what makes this so insidious. AA knows that most of their customers don't have many of these miles and are depending on the fact that those who don't will not raise a ruckus. Divide and conquer. Just wait until they refuse to make good the next time.

Those of you who think this is the right thing to do ask yourselves how you would feel if you had several hundred thousand miles (or more) that you accumulated after being promised specifically that you were guaranteed the right to use them against an certain award chart for life. This guarantee was made to cement the airlines relationship with you and entice you to choose them over their competitors during a time when the airline business was undergoing significant change and it wasn't clear who was going to come out a winner so you took a significant risk by consolidating your business with this one company.

Then when it came time for you to redeem your miles you not only find out that they have broken their promise with regards to the miles expiring they attempt to change the terms of the award chart to force you to buy a much more expensive ticket than the terms required.

Ethical enterprises honor their contractual obligations unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances that prohibit them from doing so.

They made us an offer and they should honor it.

sbedelman

Do you have any reason to believe that bankruptcy law give AA (actually their parent) the right to abrogate this settlement without approval from the bankruptcy judge?

Also any idea who represented the customers in the settlement? I'd very much like to let them know what is going on.

Thanks.

richarddd

You only need one plaintiff to file suit.

It's clearly the wrong thing for them to do.

There's a current meme that corporations have a fiduciary duty to maximize value and that duty trumps their other ethical and even legal responsibilities.

BTW, you were responding to my response to FWAAA.

brp

I'd suggest not using an irrelevant analogy then since the one is all about ownership, and the other very clearly isn't.

Yes, true. They can do this if they decide you've done something wrong, for example...whether you did not not. Th burden is on you since it's their miles. Very one-sided, and not at all like the example you gave.

Not saying that I like it any more than you do. I'm just more realistic about who owns these miles, what ownership means, and what they can do with them.

Cheers.

bbkenney

The freakin' deal is this: I (and others) gave the loyalty prior to 1989 with our business. Post 1989 I have jumped through hoops to not touch my "old" miles (600,000) of them. (I did use a lot of miles up prior to 1989 as well, including two Concorde trips for 2) But anyhow, they were for my retirement just as my other types of savings were, and no, I can't suddenly figure out how to deploy them. I always figured we'd have those miles even after i stopped traveling to visit grandkids, greatgrandkids and of course Ireland a time or two.

AA may get out from under this either through bankruptcy or otherwise but it is WRONG! THEY SAID THEY'D ALWAYS BE THERE. So how big a "freakin" deal this may or may not be, probably varies in the community based on retirements like mine or how many old miles you have. But to say we have had "23 freakin' years" to use them shows ignorance of your fellow flyers.

the400kid

Good point. The next thing you know our Roth IRA's will be taxable.

brp

OK, for those that are "not OK" with this (and it seems that there are certainly a few )

What if they were to keep the non-expiring miles as non-expiring, but change the redemption order so that redemptions came first from those miles instead of from expiring miles first? From what I've read here, there is nothing in any of the agreements to prevent that. Seems that they were pretty generous to let those miles hang around all this time while using the volatile miles.

This would (as far as I can see) satisfy their prior agreement while also depleting the indeterminate liability.

Other than "I really wouldn't want that because I don't," is there any reason why that would violate any agreements, obligations or such?

Cheers.

scubadu

It's a "FlyerTalk" few, not an average traveler few. And then it's an even, more granular few within that few, which is to say, not very many, but they are here, they are posting, and they are loud (as usual).

Regards

JDiver

Just a reminder - this is FlyerTalk,

As long as posts hew to the TOS and are civil and mutually respectful, we will not be limiting discussion to those who possess the old miles, have earned a PhD or own a pet iguana. Posts expressing such intent have been deleted.

JDiver/ Moderator