TheSinister

I guess it's not all doom and gloom for me as I thought......

Im not exactly a cheap Charlie EXP. Although I follow the mileage run threads and buy deep discount y fares to meet the minimum eqm, I now find myself not waiting for a stellar deal to be announced and just buy a y fare when available. The 4 swus hurt, but with the miles + copay to upgrade to j, I guess I'm still quite content with AA.

I was actually lurking over at the UA forums and the grass is still greener here. One important reason why I am staying with AA is because of Oneworld. I can't stand to not have access to those CX F lounges at HKG

pinksalsa

Lets think about this NOW. This is a super-mega-ultra LOSS-to-LOSS situation for those international Y flyers:

1) Your are getting a ton of less RDM. That's a huge low-blow. Well, maybe you were thinking "ok,,,less RDM but at least the award chart will be intact". hahahahaha. now lets go to point #2 below.

2) Notwithstanding with the above (receiving a ton of less RDM), now it's harder to redeem them, because it requires more RDM to get a reward. Do you follow me? Less RDM + more required RDM to redeem!!!! hhahahahaha ..nasty huh?? It hurts like a Tito Trinidad left hook. Now lets go to point #3 below.

3) For example, Europe off-peak saaver availability was reduced for about 4 months. In other words, 4 months ELIMINATED for off-peak saaver. Pre-devaluation off-peak season for Europe was from October to April (6 delicious months!!!).
Now, post-devaluation: off-peak season for Europe is from November 1 to December 14 (6 weeks); then from January 10 to March 14 (8 weeks).

Off-peak saaver pre-devaluation: 6 entire months
Off-peak saver post-devaluation: 3 months & 2 weeks.

An almost 50% reduction in availability for off-peak saaver.

Ladies and gentlement: welcome to DisAadvantage and God bless those screwed international "Y" coach flyers!!!

tom911

That $3,000 minimum spend for silver (25K) at UA is the revenue component for the tickets you fly and accrue miles on, not for those you purchase for others. If it was as easy as putting others flights on a credit card, there'd be a lot more 1Ks over there that need a $12,000 spend.

That's it. You see quite a few business travelers on the UA forum that fly the 100,000 miles for 1K but can't meet the $12,000 spend. Same with other tiers with lower revenue components. Not every business traveler can fly on higher priced fares. Not having a revenue component is something that makes AA different than UA and DL. I still have a shot at EXP at AA. I'd never have a shot based on spend at UA.

bse118

That doesn't change the fact that it's blatantly not an upgrade in terms of UDU/CPU whatever. UA Silvers get E+ at 24 hours (if available) just as AA Golds get MCE at 24 hours.

It doesn't belong in a conversation about upgrades to domestic F.

Anyhow, back somewhat on topic: Did the 2 Y to F CPUs you got as a UA silver outnumber the sticker upgrades you got as an AA gold?

cova

The award chart devaluations and the different earning from partners makes these changes worst than expected. Might as well go back to UA, with LT 1K and LT Club, and stop worrying about AA EXP (have LT AA Gold if I have to fly AA).

But for this year 2016, I expect to have EXP by mid year. So I will continue with AA through the end of 2016 and see what my upgrade % is. If upgrades were to drop significantly, then I might as well fly UA with low upgrades. At least, UA has more E+ seats.

So if upgrade rate drops then back to UA for me. Since I don't have to worry about achieving UA status (with LT 1K), then I can stop doing mileage runs on AA, and spend the extra money on higher priced UA tickets or UA discount F tickets. So spend the same, just do less mileage runs and not worry about AA EQM.

UA - you likely have me back.

GetSetJetSet

and now there are no decent FF programs. Good thing we let all of the airlines merge so they could do this with no backlash or competition!

jlb3

I've never tried to use my stickers yet. I had a decent upgrade percentage to F on US Air back when it was free and I was a lowly Silver out of DCA (I want to say about 50%). I haven't flown under 500 miles on AA since the new program went into affect.

I'll try to use my stickers on ORD-MEX and then MEX-DFW-DCA in Feb. I'm hoping the ORD-MEX clears but doubt the others will.

Oh well. I'm likely stuck with AA for 2016 due to their dominance at DCA and that it flies to where I want to go at a reasonable price (although prices are going up). I'll just get a fewer benefits. So much for loyalty.

krazykanuck

Sigh... Thankfully I have my first (and maybe only) CX F trip already booked for next year but now will have a ticking clock to redeem one last award to maybe try JAL F.

The devaluation we all knew was coming...

TheBOSman

And I was 1K on UA for a good while, and I was #6 at the gate on a CR7 DEN-DFW (hardly a longer, hubs at both end route like EWR-SFO which commonly has 50+ names on the upgrade list), with more than half the plane on the upgrade list. IAD-ATL is probably easy to clear (same with IAD-BTV), but if you're flying ORD or further west nonstop, forget about it...

bse118

As one of the those "international 'Y' coach flyers", who will be EXP in three weeks: this is a rather narrow-minded view of the benefits of a FFP.

I'm far more bothered by the cuts to SWUs (which were worse than expected), and the 0.5 EQM earnings on partner flights, than I am by the RDM cuts.

Bingo. /end Thread, IMO. ^

pinksalsa

So, you rest my case. Those "screwed international Y coach flyers" have a loss-to-loss situation. Its time to kayaking. This new 2016 disaadvantage program is not for the international coach flyer looking for low cost fares and great rewards. Those times are officially over for this niche consumer. By kayaking, the international Y flyers may be in a better position.

xSTRIKEx6864

Goodbye American. You were my preferred airline for giving miles based on distance flown, but now that you're just like Delta, I might as well fly Delta given their superior operational record or with Boston as a home airport go with JetBlue for the complimentary in-flight internet and superior legroom in economy.

xSTRIKEx6864

I guess if flying AA, too, you might as well credit miles to Alaska?

dgparent

As someone that flies weekly in the USA only these changes do not seem to bad, at about 18K in airfare I still get almost 200K in RDM. The one thing that hurts is the SWU's I was hoping that the extras would be on some combo of segments/EQM etc. Most of my round trips are 2-4K with 4 segments so I won't come close to 150EQM. I just need to be more careful when using SWU's I guess.

FWAAA

Credit card cash back isn't taxable when the underlying charges are personal (non-business) expenses, but that cash IS taxable if the charges were for deductible (and deducted) business expenses.

If an employer then reimburses you 100% of those charges, that cash back from the card is taxable. Or if you're self-employed and deduct the gross amount of the expenses, the cash back is taxable.

Sorry about this, but Faulty Premise Alert.

What do you mean by "soon to be AA?" AA is making record profits even before slashing and burning AAdvantage

In 2013, pre-merger AA's profits were just slightly less than UA's profits (in both cases, excluding special items). In 2014, post-merger AA's profits were substantially larger than UA's profits. For the first three quarters of 2015, AA's profits are larger than UA's profits and just slightly behind DL's record profits.

Given that AA became profitable during its Ch 11 proceeding and has produced record profits even larger than UA's record profits and almost as large as DL's profits, that casts some doubt on any correlation between changes to the frequent flyer plan and profits.

If DL and UA were reporting record profits but AA was still reporting losses or mediocre profits, then there might possibly be a correlation. But since AA has reported larger aggregate profits than UA in the 2012-2015 period, and profits similar to DL during 2014-2015, it's unlikely that there's a correlation.

AA became profitable in 2013 due to more efficient pilot and FA contracts (the primary reason it filed for Ch 11 in 2011) and industry consolidation that lessened competition. AA's 2013 profits (and its 2014 and 2015 profits) had no connection to frequent flyer plan cuts simply because the cuts announced by AA today came long after AA turned the corner from massive losses to huge profits.

The huge industry profits did not flow because of frequent flyer plan cuts, but they certainly give airlines confidence that generous frequent flyer plans aren't essential to success. After all, DL and UA both cut their frequent flyer plan benefits after they became profitable and both have remained profitable after those cuts.