MAH4546

AA/US already announced MCE on the US fleet; though as of yet no planes have been retrofitted.

ubernostrum

As noted, I'm not going to be CP/EXP next year. Hence, y'know, kinda cranky about the fact that "EXP or you're worthless trash" is the new norm.

Or, y'know, as a US Plat I could've had it for zero stickers, and taking connections in ORD to reduce the sticker cost isn't something that's appealing to me, y'know? As both a US Plat and a US CP, I've only had MCI-CLT or CLT-MCI fail to clear once. CLT-BDL/BDL-CLT is more elite-heavy but still a reasonable chance at US Plat.

Once again: spinning "now you have to carefully plan out when you want to be upgraded because you're limited in order to provide Premium™ flying" as an improvement over what I have had in the past as a US Plat and would have had in 2015 as a US Plat is flat nonsense. This is a hard downgrade for US Plats, period.

And as I said in one of the threads in the pmUS forum, the logical result of this is going to be empty seats going out in F, because pmUS had larger F cabins than pmAA. Which in turn is going to lead to a wonderful "rationalization" of further slashing F, and I wouldn't be surprised if they take the opportunity to cut more rows of MCE and make more elites start paying for MCE while they're at it.

So let's check back in 12-18 months and see if you still think this was a great day to be an AA frequent flyer, or if it was just the start of a bunch of "changes you'll love" masquerading as keeping the allegedly-beloved DisAAdvantage program as-is.

tegelad

Every 10K miles flow your account goes up by 10 stickers. So if you are platinum (e.g.) and fly 70K miles next year you will have 28 stickers (which don't expire) in your account.

hiima

So if I were PLT by US trial, I would lose it in March because I don't have enough PQM?

MAH4546

PMAA has larger/equal size F cabins in every case except the A319s.

And F cabins aren't going to go out empty because people don't mind spending $60-$150 to upgrade a flight. I can't remember the last time I saw an empty F seat. Heck, once I didn't even clear on LAX-LAS.

PWMTrav

I'm Silver, so it's not really appealing that I can't even have a shot at upgrading on a transcon without buying more stickers. You might think that as a Silver, that wasn't happening anyway, but since most of my travel is leisure and during leisure hours, it does happen. In the past 24 months, I've cleared PHL-SAN, PHL-LAS and PHL-PHX (Christmas redeye) more than once. Those routes are all > 4000 miles RT, so I wouldn't even earn enough to try to upgrade.

And at that point, these stickers are just to request the upgrade. I'm still in line behind everyone else. It's great that I'll continue to clear PWM-PHL/DCA for free, but I was getting that already, along with PWM-CLT all but once in the past year. And it's not like the short flights are cheap or anything.

Like I said, I think this is great for Chairmans/EXP, and also a good move from the perspective of a shareholder. But it sucks as a bottom tier elite, and that's an area where US was great.

Even after all of that, I'd still be somewhat happy if they pretended the mileage upgrade copays for elites never happened on US. Instead of stickers, you could use your RDMs to confirm upgrades if the space was available, and that was a nice benefit for all elites. Now the copay might as well be the fare difference between Y and F.

UAPremierGuy

All I can say is: ^^^^^^^^^^^^

THANK YOU, Suzanne, Doug, and the entire team at AA. I will remain a loyal AA flyer, and will make the push to qualify for EXP based on this announcement.

CPRich

Are you asking if they are going to go back through history and credit your US MM account for minimum segments, credit card spend, and other MM earning models that AA may (or may not have, I have no idea) used over the last 20 years+?

If so, no.

tegelad

Oh come on ... I know you would love to spend a few Saturday's flying AUS-DFW-IAH-DFW-TXK-DFW-AUS ... it is good ole' fun Far better then the fun time I had trying to make earlier this year to happen for grin's and giggles ...

IND-ORD-EVV-ORD-FWA-ORD-IND

+-ADT

CPRich

So I have 1.8M lifetime in US and 500K in AA. Q2 next year, does this mean I gain Lifetime Platinum for AA, but still only Lifetime Silver on US until the full merger at the end of the year?

dml105

I think you meant 10k miles gets you 4 stickers.

This begs a question of how many stickers will be deposited in US accounts ab initio? How many for CPs that are dropping down?


As for the comments about there being so many more AA elites per flight than US, how can you know that? It has been stated many times that that number is confidential business intelligence that US, AA, and other airlines are not intent on sharing.

ashill

Except that with a much larger airline with a much larger frequent flyer base, I don't think that was going to be the case post-merger anyway, at least not nearly as often.

I hear that; I was simply offering alternatives that I thought might be helpful both in maximizing upgrade chances and in understanding the sticker system. You're free to do with those suggestions as you please.

As MAH pointed out, your last clause is simply untrue; the reverse is true. AA has perfectly good revenue management; if they don't think they can sell a seat in F but are sold out in Y, they'll oversell Y and, if there are no upgrade requests, op-up to F to clear out Y. But my (less-informed-than-MAH or many others here) impression is that that almost never happens.

AA elites on this forum are overwhelmingly in support of the sticker system, I think; I suggest giving it a chance before jumping ship. My experience is that it actually works pretty well. (Full disclosure: I have a fair number of non-upgradable segments in the mix -- long haul, AS-operated, and 50 seat RJ flights; those flights earn miles toward stickers but aren't eligible to earn stickers. If you're flying primarily on upgradable domestic flights, I could certainly see a different view. I am also just coming back into the AA fold after three years based in SYD as a Delta elite.)

VickiSoCal

You don't have to buy stickers to request an upgrade. Although when I was Gold I made sure I always had 6 or so in the bank.

fastflyer

You do not need to have or to buy the stickers to request the upgrade. You can buy them as late as kiosk check-in.

AA has always monetized its premium cabins, and the new leaders (the former US management) have apparently decided to continue with that approach. It's not hard to understand why. Yes, it's a downgrade for pmUS lower-tier elites, but it may be worthwhile for them trying to stretch to EXP. The 8 SWU benefit is an amazing benefit. Good for international J to F upgrades, including double-long-haul itineraries like GRU-MIA-LHR.

ashill

It's a guess, but one that I think is pretty safe based on experience with other larger airlines (UA and DL), judging by upgrade and priority boarding queues. (Yes, credit cards have something to do with that.) There are more AA passengers and more AAdvantage members. Of course, the larger number of flights to distribute the elites over mitigates the number of elites per flight, but the flyers who used to fly 50k on US and 50k on AA will now be 100k AA elites.