It's 55K/67.5K. And what is crazy is that you can do something like JFK to HKG to CGK for those miles. Just going to HKG is a waste!

So I have a question that I have always been meaning to ask, and since the discussion is heading in this direction, I figure this is a decent place to ask it.

Whenever people talk of devaluation, they always immediately bring up the partner awards. The line of reasoning being that because the partners go to places that are far away, and because they provide a better product, they are comparatively underpriced and thus would be hit first with any devaluation.

However, what I never hear discussed is how said partners actually get compensated. At the simplest level, the partners must get compensated in some regard; that much is obvious. Is that through cash payment, miles, reciprocal seat availability, what? Whatever the means of payment is, though, would it not be the partner, not AA, that would be the initiator with respect to any increase in that payment? I mean, think about it, what would be AA's motivation to just walk up to CX and say "We feel that we need to start giving you 50% more [cash/points/reciprocity/whatever] for the same seats"? In fact, wouldn't it be in AA's benefit to keep partner awards priced artificially low in this high-load-factor environment? Wouldn't that be the win-win for AA? Its flyers are happy - good awards on great products - and AA gets more seats to sell for revenue.

So what I am saying then, is - what is the incentive for AA to initiate, unprovoked, a devaluation of partner awards? Folks in the know, please enlighten me, because, as I mentioned, the actual mechanism of partner compensation is something I've never seen discussed.

January 1, 2016 is the earliest I see any AAdvantage changes take effect. There may be no advanced announcement, the management team likes to push in surprise changes overnight.

I've got to agree after last year's "April benefits massacre"; there was no advance warning or notification at all, they just dropped the big heavy rock on us. Some of Mr. Parker's previous comments make me think he doesn't think much of us, anyway.

While I am in no way attempting to justify the "April benefits massacre", have no great love for Parker, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. AAL IT was under the gun to first combine 2 completely different systems to create the largest frequent flyer program, followed by the a similar task for the largest reservation system. In the former case, there was simply not time to provide significant notice, devaluation essentially combined the worst of both programs - with a few exceptions. I highly doubt AA or US lost customers as result of the changes, which for the most part are still superior to most competitors.

Restructuring of the elite qualification program is an entirely different matter. AA appears to have gained many frequent flyers as a result of the changes at DL and UA, made proactive efforts to entice many of them. Unless Parker is willing to watch them cut and run, any such changes will likely be more strategic, with more notice, outreach to targeted customers.

Strategically, dropping such a change at the beginning of a calendar year make NO sense, as it will allow most of those on the fence make the change quickly, have the greatest number of opportunities to qualify for a competing program in the following year. Better to make any such announcement well in to the second half of the year, when most frequent flyers are all but committed for the following year. Depending on the sophistication of the tracking system, AA can then monitor select customer activity (EXPs, higher revenue PLTs), offer targeted promotions to customers who appear to have taken significant business elsewhere, as a result of the change.

This thread made me think about next year. My mix assuming 100k EQM to requalify for EXP and free domestic "sticker" upgrades for EXPs for 2017 is 55k work, 33k NA Leisure weekend trips, one cheap 5-day trip to Europe for 7k (any other Europe/Asia travel would be award redemption to burn this years earnings), and two fun 12-hour Saturday mileage runs for the last 5k.

A sudden $10k minimum spend isn't going to be an issue for me, especially if they figure out how to incorporate BA JV fares. My work travel is in the $0.08-$0.17 CPM range to the west coast, and higher for ATL/DCA/LGA/BOS.

I've been fortunate to be 42 for 43 on free domestic "sticker" upgrades so far this year. I expect to save about $2000 this year on stickers just for work travel. That's such a big perk vs. PLT that it funds a huge portion of my domestic weekend travel - the first $0.06 CPM is balanced by the sticker savings, which means setting a target of even $0.09 for most trips (so $275-$300 for ORD-west coast) is reasonable if there's something I really enjoy doing.

With regard to 1Q16 bookings, I know my basic work travel schedule and I know that I have space for a 4-day trip over MLK weekend or the weekend before (thinking MIA and then BA mileage to GCM), a 6-day trip to Hawaii in February, and Spring Training in Arizona in March. But I am hold for booking anything until mid-October due to some family circumstances.

"When everyone is an elite, no one is an elite"

My money is on a cut to EQM earning on economy bookings, at the very minimum. Don't think the explicit spend is likely, since it's a great marketing tool that can be implemented backdoor through other policies anyways. Without it, the ranks of AAEXP will spread faster than Ebola.

I am betting on a minimum spend for Exec Plat.

Tougher use of SWUs. I can imagine restricting them to certain EY fares.

I really hope this doesn't happen. The fact that we can currently apply SWUs to cheap coach fares is a huge benefit in my eyes.

I agree. It's a great benefit, but there are too many EXPs out there. It makes it harder to use. Then if you reach a 150k miles/points, they give you additional SWUs. It's fools gold.

Either you make it harder to get EXP or you make it harder to use those SWUs.

The only reason they're difficult to use is because AA has started heavily restricting C availability up until moments before departure. Another issue is shrinking premium cabins.

pmUS tried the reduced EQM before. It didn't go well and they backed away. The guy in charge of that is the guy who now runs Spirit.

They are more likely to increase EQM qualifying to 120k to match the 120 segments, but keep EQP qualifying at 100. At that point, i shift back to qualifying on segments, as it changes my leisure destination equation from looking for moderate flights to the west coast to leveraging the east coast hub set (LGA/JFK, PHL, DCA, CLT) route maps to pick up six segment weekend trips. I like the Carolinas just fine, and doing ORD-CLT-CHS instead of ORD-LAX just changes my to-do list.

Nothing there I can disagree with. :mad:

;)

Personally, I'm going to wait and see. I'm retired now, so there are no flights to service clients, etc. I've been EP for over a decade, and my worst position is lifetime Platinum.

(I've speculated previously we lifetimers may face the minimum annual requirement of four paid segments on AA marketed flights, and I'd not be totally amazed - but it's pure speculation that means nothing. IMO it would be stupidity to alienate someone merely because they're not flying as much - because such a person is also likely to put out some negative viral marketing about the airline as a result.)

But if we're going to speculate how AA could make status more restrictive, the two easiest ways are:

1) restrict status earning to EQP, or,

2) instate an "EQD" requirement like United's; if AA matched that, minimum spend would be required, all on AA marketed flights:

I'm telling ya, they are rolling out the money based system for next year.....