Antarius

Gaming EXP or whatever is unlikely to be the reason to change. This forum is a filter bubble, a tiny minority of travelers who mileage run and chase status. This group is not affecting AA policy.

if AA changes, it will be based on much larger travel and spend patterns than us.

jcatman

What's wrong with "gaming" your way to EXP?

Life is full of opportunities to "game" the system. Some people have the time and tenacity to learn the game and play the game. Others choose not to.

Gamers are not criminals.

cova

AA prioritizes the upgrade list on 1 year rolling spend. So high spender EXPs have a higher chance of upgrades over low spend EXPs. So the benefits are already sorted to the higher spend.

UA upgrades within elite level are based on fare code for a given flight. So if your upgrade changes vary by flight - based on cost of ticket for that flight.

Mama

you meant under $5k actual spend with Delta (Excluding your KE/AF/KL spend)

fotographer

Surprised Doug has not done this already.. wait, hold the press, AA just announced the change to follow UA

pbd456

AA gives SWU and UA gives 6 GPU when making top tier.
so. there are more upgrade floating around for UA than AA (even UA has fare class restriction, people who can meet 1k would have no problem to pay up a bit to use GPU.)

rbAA

In fact, it's all according to the T&C's, so not really "gaming" the system as they like to call it. Just following the rules as written. Sorry to all those landlocked in the US, but there are many options available still for lower spend requalification. 2017 was easy with 12k EQD's at $3300 spend, with full year at 17k EQD's at $5500 spend, plus 3k from Barclay. Only $1515 spend on AA metal that year. This year is a bit more expensive at $2500 spend on AA of the $6700 total for 13k EQD's plus, counting on, the 3k from Barclay later, before the end on this year.
Next year? We'll see. There are so many other options especially with US$1000 RT's on SQ PE etc. that if AA gets more difficult then free agency kicks in (I'm also Star Gold, UA 1K until Jan and soon on OZ, as I'll not waste the money on UA for the limited bene's/higher cost requalification as UA denied my address change to my Bangkok home for some reason.Plus, I don't care for their J product, Polaris especially, except the lie-flats on the 757's domestically.)

jordyn

It's the proportion of travelers that have a status level that matters, not the total quantity (and maybe UA gets more repeat business than AA does as a fraction of total passengers). Like I said, I don't have any real data and it's purely anecdotal because I'm just relaying my friends' experience, but there seem to be a lot more 1Ks as a fraction of most flights than EXPs.

rfrost

jlsw7

Are you saying AA has announced a change to EXP qualification?

swingaling

Similar situation for me as well. Most of my flying is international and I don't live near an AA hub, so I could easily switch to another carrier or another FF plan altogether (or free agency). BAEC would be an easy OWE alternative. For *A, A3 should be super easy (roughly $3k) to earn Gold for those inclined.

Of my 17k EQD in 2018, only 3,300 EQD were on AA metal. The rest was primarily CX and QR.

355F1

gmt4

Pretty sure they were being facetious...for now. This forum would be blowing up if that sort of news dropped.

Antarius

I dont understand the desire to pre board vs group 1 or 2. By group 2, all the overhead space is still plentiful and less than 20% of the plane has boarded (typically).

other than the perceived better nature of being ahead or first, what tangible benefit do we get? UA "enhancing or improving the boarding experience" just reads as PR speak with no material change

ijgordon