With mileage earning being revenue based, plus AA pushing selling miles, and CC's buying lots of miles, miles are just another sort of currency. How about eliminating capacity controls on awards - ala WN!

I always assumed that was a positioning flight.

35k where economy is 30k is an unrealistic expectation. I would expect it to be around the mid point between economy and business

Plenty of people purchase premium economy on airlines that I am aware of and many are happy with it - gives a lot more pleasant a journey than economy

Avoid night flights and I would happily pay for than rather than pay for business class on many routes

I guess I don't see why everybody thinks the PE award flights thing is what the agent alluded to. OP didn't say anything about wanting that (at least in the post) right? Personally I don't see that as some big thing that changes the game for us. Mostly everything associated with PE just fills me with dread for the day that SWU/copays just go Y->W instead of Y->J.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c7587aebdf.png

Did I hear widebody PIT-OGG service is coming...

I give it 7 posts to the first "AA hates its customers"/"AA scr*&#ing its customers again" post

Seven? Seriously? You're are an optimist! :D

Regards

I must admit, I was thinking about this while making dinner earlier. I have no doubt that AA is getting ready to announce PE awards, that makes sense and honestly, is a little bit of a me too move. Furthermore, over the years I've learned to observe when JonNYC is confident about information and he clearly is on this, so I'm confident he is correct.

But, in the context of this specific OP, who is an EXP, visiting with an agent and expressing the sense of "not feeling the love" and questioning if re-qualifying is worth it, I'm just wondering if PE award charts is something that would will be highly valued by EXPs? Maybe some, I'm sure, but in my experience, most people that consistently qualify for EXP are either a) not using awards because they are on the hamster wheel of re-qualifying or b) they are obsessed with J/F redemptions and generally turn their nose up at anything not in those cabins.

So, yes, I'm confident JonNYC is correct re: PE awards, but I wonder if that is what this agent is alluding too or if there might be something else. Of course, in my experience, if there is something else, JonNYC would probably know about that too before an EXP phone agent! :)

Regards

"But, in the context of this specific OP, who is an EXP, visiting with an agent and expressing the sense of "not feeling the love" and questioning if re-qualifying is worth it, I'm just wondering if PE award charts is something that would will be highly valued by EXPs? Maybe some, I'm sure, but in my experience, most people that consistently qualify for EXP are either a) not using awards because they are on the hamster wheel of re-qualifying or b) they are obsessed with J/F redemptions and generally turn their nose up at anything not in those cabins."

This is pretty much a summary of the conversation. I was polite, she was interested and kept asking questions. I gave concrete examples -- AA's cost ORD to AMM is nearly triple Royal Jordanian's. An award redemption to PTY was 95,000 points in coach, and RJ's for 3 of 4 segments. There are other examples. I've just gotten frustrated at how expensive (cash, award points, etc) AA has gotten.

Absolutely agree- 100%

The question was asked:
and I answered:
and linked to info that I know for certain is a coming AAdv change.

But very very true that there's no way for me to know what the agent was referring to and how much of it was this, although with he OP's clarification above, I think I, for one, can see why this agent might have thought this was a -somewhat- pertinent way to change the subject a bit :)

I remember the LIT-NRT calls. I would think that XNA-PVG would be more successful.

XNA-PEK. Since PEK is the real cash cow!

Either one works. I've found the major manufacturing centers are more likely to be a larger in and around Shanghai. Although Tianjin is no slouch.