I'm speculating too, but I'm not disagreeing with you.

I think it's a little too late for that. The 2017 program year? Yeah, that's a possibilty.

almost a certainty at this point.

Let's also hope that this indicates that by October we should have details about the 2017 program, and if indeed AA will follow UA and DL, or be the holdout and keep its current EQP variant of revenue-based elite qualification. For AA, the biggest issue that arose from its competitors going revenue-based was the RDMs accumulated by full and premium fare customers which resulted in the bonus program introduced earlier this year. If this can be addressed in some other way than a multiple of the $s spent (ala DL and UA) there's no reason to go for a pure revenue-based model and thus give AA a competitive advantage among some frequent fliers.

Having been rather generous with Challenges and Challenge/Status Matches, AA knows how many top tier elites its attracted from UA and DL, and if the revenue they've generated makes it worth keeping the current model. From a bottom line perspective, AA is making more money than ever, so there's little need alienating a significant chunk of regular customers.

So let's wait for the next shoe to drop...

Does anyone recall how much time AA gave when it informed members about increased sectors flown requirements to achieve/renew status?

It was announced on Oct 28, 2014.

http://hub.aa.com/en/nr/american-air...antage-program

Thank you. As you can see with that change, they only gave two months. That's all they need. I'm in the camp where I believe the changes will kick in next year....not 2017.

I recently purchased some AA first class domestic tickets. Different flights on the same day had different prices and also different codes for exact class of service. Spending different amounts of money seemed to yield different amounts of AA award miles. With the bonus program going on it seemed to me that spending more would yield many more AA miles.

I ended up earning a heap of BIS AA miles. I believe AA is training me to spend more to get more miles.


2016 should be a very interesting year for us who fly AA.

The thought of falling from EXP is depressing.......

Falling from EXP to GLD wasn't nearly the blow that I thought it would be, especially as AA had already gone significantly downhill by that point. I had a significant wasteland of stickers to work through on AA and have been primarily using them to position to flights on better airlines. No more suffering through AA's 'premium' products.

I agree with the others who have stated AAdvantage is likely to go revenue based sooner rather than later. The current management team hasn't had an original idea since they decided to start charging for water a few years ago on US Airways, so the shoe certainly fits.

The problem in this case though, is that AAdvantage is really the only redeemable part of American Airlines. Once that is dismantled, there is really no reason to choose AA over DL, UA, LCCs, and foreign airlines as they just have nothing left to offer that can't be found better and cheaper elsewhere.

If they go revenue based with a cc spend waiver, I would be worried what level would that waiver be. UA excludes their highest elite tier (1K) from the cc spend waiver, and AA already has a high threshold for giving out the 10k bonus EQPs for $40k cc spend, so, if the waiver is $40k in cc spend, it would be too high. If it is $25k, like DL's, and EXP is not excluded, it will be fine.

The worst scenario is AA introducing minimum dollars spend and no reasonable cc spend waiver, and then all the money spend on BA flights for next year go to waste, not counting towards the AA minimum dollars spend.

I think we need to contact BA and ask for assurances, before any further purchases.

What rôle does BA have in AA management making - or not - changes to the AAdvantage program? I'm trying to understand.

They probably know what's up, and they have a vested interest, so if they want us to keep buying tickets on BA stock for 2016 they should re-assure us, coz I am stopping doing this until we know the deal for 2016.

I'm in the camp of BA wouldn't have the slightest idea why someone would be "contacting them for assurances" in this context and certainly would have nothing to offer in response to such an inquiry.