CUSO

I gave up my Platinum on AA this year and have had nothing but good experience... I am currently sitting in MSP waiting for my flight back to DFW. I cant believe I chased so long. Now I have 1.5 million advantage miles that I plan to keep and milk for a few years, but paying for AA fare is over. Devaluation, and 0 initiative to keep customers did it for me. Grand scheme, it probably wont matter. This trip I decided to take Sun Country... I could not have had a better experience, and I am pretty hard to impress. AA wanted $550 for coach round trip Sun Country wanted $235 and this includes and exit row seat. If I were from Minneapolis I would use them exclusively. Nice clean plane, friendliest FA's I ever met. Makes me wonder what other sleeper airlines I have missed out on. Anyone else done this or planning too?

tom911

I'd be curious what happens with irregular operations with Sun Country and whether you have to wait for one of their planes to become available or if they'll reroute on other carriers. Look what happened with Allegiant in LAS on Monday:

Hundreds of Allegiant Airlines passengers headed to OKC stranded in Las Vegas

It's just something I've never worried about with the larger carriers, knowing they'll find some way to get me home.

Have you looked at Sun Country's award program? Do they have many international partners?

I've never noticed a Sun Country aircraft at SFO. Do they even fly here?

CUSO

tom911, i flew Columbus to DFW 4 weeks ago (using miles), transmission generator and backup both wwent out and pilot declared and emergency. We landed in Lexington at about 130. No repair, or flight until Noon the next day. they put me in a hotel, but still, even big guys have this.

Dave Noble

If able to get fares 50% cheaper by shopping around, what does it really matter whether the airline has any award scheme

tom911

50% cheaper doesn't help me if they don't have frequent service from my primary airport. IMagine those Allegiant flights were discounted, too, and that didn't hell those flyers get home.

Dave Noble

What matters when I book flights is whether the airline has a flight at the time I want to travel.

carlosdca

You seem to think that the OP is becoming a Suncountry frequent flyer.
That's not what he said.

I think the OP just mentioned Suncountry as an example of one of the many options he has now that he ditched AA.

TrojanHorse

If you save 50% off domestic fares enough times then you have enough to purchase an Int'l fare on a big 3 carrier when needed.

Not quite the same example but I gave up AA after 2012 requalification and am flying UA to SFO next week; that was blasphemy in 2012 and prior for me; now its how I fly (not necessarily UA but anyone I can get for a better price for the same product - meaning I do not play the basic economy game)

jmj9905

I know there are a lot of legitimate complaints about AA. Especially since the merger. However, I leave in about six weeks for south africa. My wife and I are flying iad/doh/cpt in business and returning jnb/lhr/iad in F on BA. I am doing this with aa miles. I don't know any low cost airlines that I could do that with their miles.

Dave Noble

If you were saving $315 on such trips, the cash saving will be worth more than the miles earned

$550 would give 2750 miles as a base member or $6050 max as an EP member. With a $315 saving on a trip , would be able to buy the required miles from an airline scheme and still have plenty leftover - or just use some of the money saved to buy a business class ticket

Happy

It has been YEARS you do NOT need to fly AA in order to have oodles of AA miles to do exactly what you do.

The ONLY pay AA flights we have flown in the past 3 years were 3 or 4 domestic one-ways and 1 YYZ-MIA coming up in Sept. That is it.

Yet, we have done what you now about to do, 2 times already! 2 RTW trips including South Africa in the mix - 1 in 2015, 1 in 2016. Note: They were RTWs, not just a simple round trip between US and South Africa. Therefore the miles needed would be more than a simple R/T.... Would be ultra hard to earn those by flying!

Coming up, one-way MIA-DOH-CPT on AA miles, return JNB-HKG//HKG-USA on AS miles in CX J and F. I am sure there is no argument CX F is superior than BA F which is dubbed as the best business class in the industry... Plus, never have to pay the BA scam fee which I am sure you would have to pay on your inbound BA F, an inferior F product to say the least. But to each their own.

Exactly! The days to earn miles by flying has long gone now all the major airlines go on revenue scheme. With the business class fares are very competitive in certain markets, the cash saved over time definitely would enable one to buy business class ticket which would earn 100% miles versus the crappy ratio on an economy. That is another way to look at it too.

The airlines go for revenue-based schemes, SO AS THE CUSTOMERS!

The argument on "I fly AA because of its international partners" is sooooo out of date. Keep the AA FFP, earn the AA miles from so many other ways, just not from flying. When actually need to pay cash to fly, shop for the best prices / schedules to suit one's need. No reason to stay "loyal" to a particular FFP just because you need an international award.

Besides, there are many other FFPs out there that are better than AAdvantage, from both the alliance network stand point to the utmost important aspect of a program - the award availability, plus sweet spots on the programs ... No reason to just stay "loyal" to a particular program, especially nowadays flying to earn miles does not work the same as in the past.

Can't believe in this days and age there are still people think they have to fly a certain airline in order for them to earn enough miles to redeem international awad.... So outdated.

BearX220

Unless you are completely price-insensitive and buying tons of full-fare premium tickets with OPM, the miles factor is probably driving irrational behavior. You are probably over-paying for domestic travel (and making other sacrifices like unwieldly connections, suboptimal schedules, etc.) in order to amass miles of dubious / uncertain value. Chances are if you book the cheapest ticket on whatever airline every time and bank the money saved, you'll have enough in a couple of years to buy exactly the overseas ticket you want.

It wasn't always this way, of course, but much of the time now miles are a narcotic that get us to do diseconomic or inconvenient things.

Austin787

Used to be loyal to AA, and had status for the last 10 years. When booking a flight, as long as I'm comfortable with AA's price I don't look at the other airlines. I would even take a connecting itinerary on AA over a non-stop on a competitor.

Devaluation of AAdvantage and cuts in the onboard product have made AA no better than its competitors (and in some ways AA is arguably worse), so no incentive to stick with AA. Being a free agent is a wonderful thing - I focus on convenience, product, and price and book the airline that offers the best combination of those things.

kb9522

People selecting carriers almost entirely on the basis of price only perpetuates the race to the bottom. Good job contributing to the problem.

Ceasy

I stopped being loyal to AA about 1.5 years ago. Find that having the equivalent of platinum on both AA and UA is a nice balance and gives me options.

I am, however, completely loyal to JAL for flights to Asia - incredible J product and worth the premium (when there is one).