American has the benefit of watching what happens between Delta and United while they integrate with US Air. If they think they are taking business away from those airlines, they may remain as they are or even try some other things to steal their customers. Although Delta and United are rev based now, you never know down the line what changes they can or will make. Delta and United expect American to also go rev based. If they don't, it could be interesting.

Speculation: AAdvantage Devaluation Estimation?
 

Surprised I don't see any other threads on this but from what I have gathered this Fall is when we can expect to see changes on the award chart when US/AA have fully merged. Just wondering what people will think what the date will be that the current chart before it changes to require more miles for awards as it seems to be inevitable.

As far as I can see this has already happened. Lately whenever I go to book an award ticket the miles required are staggering compared to the old days when 25k got you any seat on the plane. Any further devaluation or restriction on availability will make them virtually worthless IMHO. When ever I get an email to buy additional miles I shake my head as you are pretty much paying money for miles that are now so difficult to use.

As was just said above... its already been devalued for peak days, times and seasons. I dont see them raising the amounts for Milesaavers, just further reducing the availability. Try choosing 2 months out for a major holiday (like 4th of July) and many domestic routes are 50k+ eachway.

The one positive is that there is demand weakness internationally (and domestic to a degree) right now. Loads to all 3 major intl regions for AA (Latin, Europe, Asia) are dropping year over year pretty badly. If loads (and PRASM) were up substantially to those regions, then I think it *could* precipitate a further change.

I was thinking more like the partner award charts where 60K each way can get you on the finest F carriers in the world. I just think those will undoubtedly go up big time. Like what United did where they made the partner redemption significantly higher. Don't you see AA following that same model?

That's not worked out so well for United, lot's of people are leaving for that and more. Also, what does it say? To me it screams loud and clear: "we admit the first class product is better on other airlines, and it has greater value". It was one of the dumbest things United did, telling the world, our product is crap, so you can have it for less miles, brilliant brand building.

I completely agree with you; however, when I just looked at the award chart I don't see how they get more than 30k each way for an anytime ticket.

My guess is that AA will follow DL and UA, go to more of a revenue model for elite qualification, starting in 2016. This will thin out the herd of those fighting for upgrades, free premium seats, elite bonus miles.

Agree with others that award charts will likely stay pretty much the same, RM will continue to more strategic with the release of saaver awards.

I like the choice of the word "strategic". Saver awards are now available on flights leaving on Wednesday morning between 5 am and 6:45 am.

It's variable for Anytime Level 3, and its unpublished. After a quick google search I found this blog that talks about Level 3:
http://blog.wandr.me/2014/04/america...-3-award-tier/

Top is needless to say, no where near 30k miles.

My take: The devaluation occurred April 2014, soon after Mr. Parker took the helm; he wasted little time. A logical point for further juggling was the merger of Dividend Miles into AAdvantage.

The moving of SHARES data to Sabre neither completes the merging process nor offers a logical milepoint for further changes. Mr. Parker stated "no more changes" this year, and I believe that.

Next year, that's another ball of wax.

There are some who believe we're in a "watch and wait" position about revenue-based earning - perhaps there's an advantage to being the one airline that's different than DL and UA. But IAG (BA & IB) have revised their miles earnings, so perhaps we should try to make out the writing on the wall.

One relatively easy way to continue might be to base status on EQ points alone, eliminating EQM and only awarding RDM. But this is sheer speculation.

So this would also eliminate the possibility of qualifying by segments? I don't see that happening, although AA could stress fractional segments based on fare class.

It's not on the chart, but a bunch of flights to Europe this summer are 180k miles one-way in business. That's a pretty significant hit.

Would be interesting, considering the Citi Exec and Barclay Aviator Silver award only EQM and not EQP or EQS. Although I suppose that would change.

Others have brought this up, but I think this would be the absolute worse solution for me and many "domestic only" flyers based in midwest (ORD/DFW area). The vast majority of my work flying is shorthaul/medium haul domestic to non-hub/small hub cities (ie little to no competition.

I regularly buy a ~$720 roundtrip DFW-FWA in S or G (which is as cheap as I can ever find), which earns 0.5 EQP, but has a yield of $0.42... while DFW-PHX, almost the same distance, has a roundtrip V for $308 RT, which would earn 1.0 EQP but a yield of just $0.18.

EQPs are arbitrary at best. I hope they keep the same metric as today, but if they dont, I'd MUCH prefer it to switch to dollar amounts and not EQPs. I'd have to do 230+ segments like DFW-FWA to hit 100k EQPs. Yet I could spend $682 RT on AA to fly in F DFW-LAX (capacity controlled, yes, but absoultely out there) and earn 1.5 EQPs on a LOWER yield than that DFW-FWA (and markets like it), and qualify on just 54 segments.

EQPs are the bane of short-haul flyers to non-competitive markets domestically.

ETA: The minute AA does this change is the minute I switch my flying over to WN and "drive" from their markets to where I need to go. I'd be able to earn A-List Companion Pass in less than 6-months a year.

I concur (and have been saying that more or less since the moment of the merger).

But that gets to what loyalty programs are for. As I see it, from the airlines' perspective, elite status programs are about driving driving you to fly the airline. In non-competitive markets, they figure you'll fly them anyway (otherwise they wouldn't price it so high). More precisely, they expect to lose less revenue revenue to WN or driving due to lower EQP earning than they expect to gain from the sky-high fares. But in competitive markets like Dallas-PHX, they actually need to fight for your $308 fare, and frequent flyer programs are one way of doing that. If you'll fly AA at $308 over WN at $308 because of the loyalty program, I'm sure they're thrilled to give you the 1.0 EQPs. (Otherwise, they wouldn't have sold the $308 fare, especially not as a V fare!) If it weren't for the loyalty program (especially with checked bag fees), they'd probably have to charge less than $308 to get that business.

Also, of course, if AA wanted to, they could make the $720 DFW-FWA fares V fares and give out 1.0 EQPs (or even B and thus 1.5 EQPs). So in that way, EQPs let the airline choose how much a given fare is worth to them. (Though I'm sure there's a lot more that goes into choosing which fare bucket a given fare is filed under, and this is probably a secondary consideration. I certainly don't know much about how fares are filed behind the scenes.)

That's why I don't really understand revenue-based qualification. It is certainly more equitable in a way, but it rewards hub captives who pay high fares because they don't have a realistic choice (so the airline is getting the revenue anyway, on average) without incentivizing customers whose revenue they are more likely to lose.

Certainly miles (and EQPs) are an imperfect reward system, but revenue-based EQMs and qualification are also very much imperfect. I'm unconvinced that revenue-based qualification is better from the airlines' perspective, though it is undeniably the trend worldwide.