swag

I'm Gold and got the email.

Since the free drinks had been previously announced, the main piece of new info was the loss of the Gold discount, and that only affects us Golds. And since EXPs got the free drink already, y'all are least affected by the news.

dw

I can't say I'm too surprised because it seems, in general these days, anything that one of the US-3 offers that is more generous than the other two ends up on the chopping block.

Both UA and DL only allow access to the extra legroom section for their 25k flyers 24 hours in advance, and do not offer a discount on purchasing it outright, so it was only a matter of time before AA aligned with them. (Where there is still a discrepancy... is that UA allows 50k flyers to pick EconPlus at booking, whereas DL only allows those flyers access to Comfort+ within 72 hours of departure.)

dinger

My wife and I have been Gold for a decade. The most valuable perk to us was the 50% MCE discount. This is a big blow for someone who always books months in advance and wants to confirm MCE at booking time.

AANYC1981

no e-mail here

monvoyage

You and me both. I get most of the same/other perks with AAdvantage-affiliated credit card but the MCA at 50% was very important to me. I am really pissed. A free drink does not remotely make up for this in any way.

PHL

Will the E190 single row of "MCE" (i.e. exit row) be entitled to these new "enhancements"?

autdi

Doesn't apply just curious, but those that can't pick a seat when making the reservation, and have to get it assigned at check in, are they going to be excluded from the MCE seats? These are the tickets at the low end of the price range typically, so giving away MCE because they need a seat doesn't sit well with the rest that can pick a seat, but can't get MCE until T-24, the same time the cheap tickets can check in and get a seat. Haven't seen anything about this, but traveling this week, the center seats in 2 rows both sides in MCE were filled with folks likely in group 8 or 9, they were the last few on the plane. The FA was guarding the bins though, kept 2 of them closed through boarding until someone reached the row and started looking for bin space, then voila, bins open and completely empty.

DenverBrian

Hard to get very excited about this enhancement when it applies to a fleet of which half has MCE only in exit rows and bulkheads. And don't get me started on how a bulkhead somehow qualifies as "additional legroom." Hint: It doesn't.

HofstraJet

genotonda

So I'm currently on a MSY-LAX flight, in MCE, and thought I'd see how they roll this out. Especially since it's an almost 4 hour flight, I was curious if they'd roll the drink cart out twice, let MCE folks order more than once, etc. I'm not a drinker, so I had to observe, versus test it myself. First person around me that ordered a drink, i saw her take payment from customer, it looked like there was some conversation about that, but I thought she was telling him that he wasn't original passenger of that seat. Fast forward to a few min ago when FA comes by to pick up some trash, and I decide to ask her about the change.

Me: So how are you guys handling the new free drinks policy in these seats? Is it just 1 drink? Are you verifying that the person was assigned to the seat?

FA: I actually have not heard of any change. I don't know what your referring no. I'll have to look into it.

Me: They just sent an email earlier, that it started today. So they didn't tell you guys?

FA: No. I'll have to check my email. Sorry if it did change, but I don't know about it. (Last part was said as if she meant sorry that I can't give you a free drink, because she was not aware of new policy.)

Me: I'm not a drinker, so it doesn't affect me. I was just curious.

FA: Ya, I'll have to check my email. I haven't checked it in awhile.

Wow. I don't know why, but I'm still amazed at the lack of communication when a policy like this changes, generally to a customer's benefit, at this airline.

I also now believe that the convo she had with that customer about paying, was actually about the drink supposed to be being free, but that she was just not aware of it. When I was questioning her, it seemed like I was not the only one who brought it up to her.

scubadu

As an EXP not impacted by this policy not getting an email about it matters because....

Regards

teemuflyer

"cause we're kind of special, duh!

AANYC1981

AAway

What a sh** show. I can't believe there's not some system in place for FA's (and other work groups as applicable) to electronically acknowledge receipt and understanding of operational changes such a this so that management can ensure the employees have received the information and follow up on those who have not acknowledged.

I had a similar situation (kind of) -- I was in F recently and the FA was taking orders, had his manifest, and looked at me and said "Pro (I think is what he said) ... hmmm I've never seen that before. That must mean you're extra special". I just played dumb as I didn't think it was my place to train the FA on the new elite level that his company introduced about a year prior. He must also not read his email very often

Does anyone have any insight on this?

econometrics

Ha! This reminds me of when they started serving Ranger IPA on board. I asked for one in MCE a couple weeks after they started carrying it. It was about a 1 minute conversation of consternation with the FA until I literally showed her on the seat-back menu, then pointed to it in the drawer in the cart she was pushing.

"Oh. Wow. Didn't realize we had that."



To the FA's credit, though... there have been SO many changes in the past 2 years. I'm sure this creates some level of increased apathy to paying attention. Especially when the changes will require more work from the FA's.