ibrandsguest

Am I analyzing this correctly?

If you're Platinum, if you have multiple AA credit cards and can generate 15,000 elite-qualifying miles from them, then you will need to buy $4,375 of tickets to generate 35,000 elite-qualifying miles ($364.50 per month), for a total of 50,000, in order to maintain Platinum status.

That's fine by me. It seems easier than flying 35,000 miles. I definitely spend that already.

JamilD

EQM is still based on distance flown (and, now, class of service). Only redeemable miles are calculated via spend, starting from the second half of 2016.

bse118

Nope. You are off because EQMs are not tied to $. They are still based on distance flown.

Interesting how many folks seem to be confused by this.

ETA: JamilD beat me to it.

eponymous_coward

How is a mileage program going to be an incentive for someone who flies <= 1 time per year (aka "87% of AA's customer base") compared to a credit card that by itself delivers you one domestic round trip or more?

Plain and simple, AA wants you to get miles through Citibank, not by flying SFO-LAX-PHX-DFW-PHL-CLT-ORD-DCA-JFK on a $99 ticket (or any other number of things we love to do here in our pursuit of Krug and caviar).

scubadu

Agreed, I'm not that happy about the change, but it's really not difficult to understand.

Regards

1K-DFW

Generally I am ok with the new changes with the exception of two items:

1. Reducing the systemwide awards in half for EXPs is an insult; it would have been more reasonable to at least provide six certificats.

2. For American to even publish an award chart showing MileSAAver award levels for long distance international premium class is an insult to the AAdvantage community. We know very well that MilesAAver inventory is rarely allocated on most of the long distance international routes.

I am extremely disappointed with these two changes.

JonNYC

I don't see how the second thing is a change.

pokecheckted

Yes, it is.

When United did this just recently, it left AA as the sole Legacy survivor of the old miles system. United people were flocking over to AA in droves, me included.
Now that they have improved! their program, most to all of the incentive is gone for me to stay here. I have gone from United to AA to Kayaker.

In this competitive industry, AA was suddenly bequeathed a huge competitive advantage. Within 2 years, they voluntarily chose to completely forfeit that edge.

THAT is actually very difficult to understand.

MarkedMan

The problem with this point is that it is difficult to discern an argument for the old AAdvantage program being a competitive advantage.

I didn't mind at all that under the current system I could get a free F round trip award to Europe every two J trips I made out there. It was very cool. But for it to be a competitive advantage AA would have had to see convincing argument that this was directly responsible for higher revenues in some significant way.

I would think that is much harder to establish. Granted, looking at some of the facts they've basically halved the value of the miles, in some instances even quartered, especially if you were redeeming for F. That's pretty brutal. But I will bet they figure this won't impact things too much. They are still marginally better than UA, quite a bit better than DL and even better than BA, who are a close partner. AA has been trying to pull in folks from other airlines for some time into AAdvantage, with all sorts of offers, and it hasn't really done wonders for them. They aren't beating the hell out of DL and that they are doing better than UA is due to a lot more than a better FFP. I don't see how anyone could stack the advantages against the liabilities of the program and argue it is essential that it be kept the way it was.

The biggest risk in all this is that folks who buy a bit of biz/F, usually discounted and planned in advance at lower prices, now have MUCH less incentive to stick with AA. These are folks spending maybe 10/15k a year on tickets, not super big spenders but folks you'd want to keep around, and they can "kayak showboat" a bit too now. Everyone else will either be rolling in miles or is welcome to leave ...

Andrew DCA

I hope you are right. I have been having great luck (100% so far actually) with my free upgrades on DCA to LAX, LAS, MIA, DFW, ORD, LGA.

While I realize those are not nearly as valuable as upgrades on int'l routes, I value them highly as a new EXP because they are automatic, easy, and make travel comfortable (admittedly not luxurious). So I hope the up-fares don't eat into that availability.

scubadu

Uh... ok, your comment telling me "yes it is" has absolutely, positively nothing to do with what I was commenting on (the mathematical equation for determining RDMs, which is easy to understand, it's freakin' arithmetic)

If you want to go on rant then go for it, but don't misappropriate my comments as your launch point.

Regards

unhappyflyer

+1

bse118

I'm one of those that came over from United. I left UA because A) operationally they were a terrible carrier at the time and B) spend requirement for status.

AA didn't have a spend requirement for status then. And still doesn't. That's a big part of the advantage in AAdvantage for me.

This ranting about RDMs being a "competitive advantage" is getting pretty tiresome. From a business standpoint, the old system really was out of whack.

trekker954

I know these changes are to be for 2016. I know last year when I requalilfied EXP in Dec 2, 2014, I within days received my 8 system wide awards. I just requalified EXP yesterday will I get my 8. I'm sure others who qualified even last month, already got theirs. But with this notification, I'm assuming the worse.

Anyone know?

Andrew DCA

Yes, you still get 8 SWUs for the 2015 qualification year (2016 membership year, ending Feb 28, 2017).

Changes start with the following year (2016 qualification, 2017 membership, ending Jan 31, 2018).