Stripe

AA's new program is certainly not competitive with DL's. DL counts all Medallion Qualifying Miles earned, whether on DL or on partners, and includes class of service bonuses. DL also gives the opportunity to earn MQMs via credit card spend, and on cards with lower annual fees. Although AA's will earn toward MM status at a 1-for-1 ratio, the card will not help after 2012.

However, I give AA full marks for the way they communicated this and are rolling out the change. On that score, AA far outshines DL.

sandiego-flyer

Let me first thank the longtime FTers on this board who gave the rest of us plenty of heads up on how to play the LT mileage game as we awaited the news. I also want to thank AA and Maya for giving us all 3 months heads up on what the changes are, and a fairly reasonable transition plan.

I am 2.92MM at this point and will pass 3.0MM before the year is over. Nearly all of those miles are BIS miles sitting in the seats (of course, that includes the status bonus miles, so probably 1.5MM+ real BIS miles!). I feel that I have earned the status. I compare this to my sister-in-law at 2MM+ with 90% earned with the credit card and wonder how that is fair to AA and to the loyalists who sit on planes and bring revenues to AA.

As for those who feel UA is better, take another look at their programs from top to bottom and you will see that AA is better. I am both AA EXP and UA 1K, but my lifetime miles on UA take a huge hit because 50% or more of my miles do not count -- flights on Asiana, Singapore, Lufthansa, US Airways, etc have no value towards your LT status. So thanks AA for allowing all of your partner flights count towards LT status.

Any time someone changes the plan, there will always be winners and there will always be some folks who feel like they have lost. In the end, the airlines need to shake things up a bit to focus on seat revenues with people flying in their planes. Many of the casual flyers hate the Southwest RR2.0 program, but they made it more dollar value based to attract higher paying business customers -- good business move with winners (such as me who will be A-List Preferred) and losers who got free tickets from buying 16 one-way $39 Get-Away fares.

Overall, I am happy with the changes and it places more value on what should be important to AA -- people who pay to fly! Would have been better if they had a dual counter of EQM/EQP to give upside to the F,J flyers out there, but still a good sound business move.

Biblioman1

Should we start a new thread on best ideas to transfer max points possible before 12/1/11? There are several of us close to MM goals that are ready to pull out all the stops to bank as many miles as possible. I'm at 1.6 million and would like to imagine I could get to lifetime plat in another year or two.

drron

One very relieved non-American here.Immediately before reading about thes changes I read the email from Maya Liebman congratulating me on passing 2 million miles.The early warnings were appreciated and even though downunder you cant get an AA co branded CC I was able to accumulate that last 1 million miles in just under 21 months.
Will I change programs because of the change?Absolutely not.What would have been the point of obtaining LTP if I am not going to use it.
Like a few others the only disappointment to me is that the Class of Service miles wont count towards lifetime miles.Might have reached 3 million before cutting back travel if they did.

The interesting point for us Aussies is that Aadvantage was often pointed to as being much better than the QF program.With these changes it will be easier to obtain OWE and lifetime status on QF except for limited circumstances.

swag

Already is one:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...12-1-11-a.html

dstan

For me, personally, as a PLT, I get enough miles thru normal travel (50K flying + 50K elite bonus) to accommodate the upgrade awards that I redeem.

However, I think that AA is banking on the fact that, in addition to being blissfully ignorant of MM status, most members with AA credit cards are NOT elites, and are banking miles toward Award Travel. I agree that that will likely not change.

jcrossen

I am sitting at 977K miles now and will probably be at 990K when Dec 1 rolls around, so at least I will get the 35K bonus miles, but I am pretty sure I will never hit 2MM now.

Fly2Where

Why there is no one comparing aa with QF, which IMHO it's alot easier under the new AA program.

Comparing AA to UA is not fair as it's different alliance. Now AA & QF will be interesting.

QF Elite can use AC on US domestic flight. I mean just for status standpoint.

Of course if you need a lot domestic travel upgrade, will be a reason.

goingbananas

I agree with your comments. Looking at the responses to this change AA is making has been "good and civil."

I have a feeling when the UA MM program changes come out, along with the overall changes to MP, there will be Armageddon over on the UA board.

badgerW

Sad face here. Sitting at 350k LT. Probably around of those were BIS over the past 15 years. This is my first year getting status (presently GLD, will hit PLAT by the end of the year) purely out-of-pocket leisure travel, no business travel. I am debating transferring my 60k Amex MR points to SPG and then to AA. Sure it's a lousy trade (60k MR -> 20k SPG -> 25k AA) but 25k extrAA miles in my account before 12/1 is probably at least a year quicker to getting LT GLD. Also debating buying the max, and trading with my wife (who sits at about the same LT level, between 350k and 400k). Also hoping that some of my Reliant Energy bonus miles post soon.

On the other hand, for a mere $450/yr I can get most of the benefits of GLD anyway; and if I do lose status (which is likely over the next couple of years) then I can always do a challenge to re-gain it. I wish I had been churning my Citi card instead of holding on to an AA MC for the past 5+ years. With a couple of churns during that period, I would easily be at 500k right now.

drron

It is going to be a lot easier to get lifetime status on QF now compared to Aadvantage.
One example-LAX-DFW-just over 1200 miles so going to take you over 1600 such sectors to get to 2 million life time miles on AA.
On QF if in F it will take~117 sectors,in discount Y(providing a class which credits to QF)~ 700 sectors to reach lifetime gold=OWS.And the lifetime gold gives you lifetime qantas club=AC entrance.

Spock Seat

Oh please. Back in the 2008's recession a ton of people were EXP until 2/2010 and were completely unable to use it. But you did pass a great idea of booking a flight on CX in H or above to grab 32,000+ AA Miles before December 1, 2011. @:-)

AA show me the O bucket please.

Spock Seat :-:

tom911

Don't some Qantas awards, though, price at twice what an equivalent AA award would price at? I know one AA flyer in Australia that I've regularly seen at OzFest when I'm over (FT event for those that have never heard of it) and he sticks with AA because of better redemption values. He flies at the EXP level.

If anyone is thinking of making the move to Qantas, made sure you check redemption rates for awards.

Supersonic Swinger

This probably means all those missing eShopping miles will all magically post in a batch in early December.

Based on AMR's dropping share price, let's hope the "lifetime" of the AAdvantage program isn't in the autumn of it's years.

ffI

Slow day so I stay at home till 2 PM and go to work and see what happens in 5 hours, a new email waiting for me and 250 posts about it already on FT.
We are LT P but our kids will never get there without serious help.
Maybe I should have bought some more SPG last year and transferred all to AA for them...
My brother is at 1,945,784; 3 months of BD should do it Sep, Oct, Nov..