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AA and AS relationship becomes further reduced; awards end 3/2020

Per multiple blogs the relationship is going to be further diluted, if any remains beside lounge access. Anyone else can comment?

Quote:

American Expected to Further Gut its Partnership With Alaska Airlines
by Gary Leff on July 19, 2019 link

Quote:

JonNYC
@xJonNYC
look for more degradation to the AA/AS partnership (such as it is) coming. Not surprising, I suppose, but will definitely affect those who currently earn, etc. I'd expect reciprocal lounge access to remain however, but all up in the air at this point.
7:04 AM - Jul 19, 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by felicidad76 (Post 31321232)

Per multiple blogs the relationship is going to be further diluted, if any remains beside lounge access. Anyone else can comment?

Sources? Summary? What further has been lost that wasn’t lost as of 1 Jan 2018? (That occurred due to Alaska’s takeover of Virgin America.)

The only remaining parts of any AA - AS relationship are 1) some codeshares, 2) lounge access for Admirals Club members. Oh, using award miles! I just secured two MileSAAver First seats on AS SMF-KOA nonstop.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...-airlines.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by felicidad76 (Post 31321232)

Per multiple blogs the relationship is going to be further diluted, if any remains beside lounge access. Anyone else can comment?

I just used orphaned AS miles for an AA ticket, and AA gave me the option to upgrade with <stickers>

Well i am alaska mvpg75k and i used aa a lot when flying internationally to earn bunch of miles. Now it is questionable will even this continue

Glad I have a BA account to use - even if AS goes away (more) for crediting when I need to fly AA international.

It is a sad situation when I am a 3M EQM with AA and still have zero desire to gain anymore (dis)AAdvantage miles in my account.

Even SkyPeso’s are worth more at this point IMHO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDiver (Post 31321265)

Sources? Summary? What further has been lost that wasn’t lost as of 1 Jan 2018? (That occurred due to Alaska’s takeover of Virgin America.)

The only remaining parts of any AA - AS relationship are 1) some codeshares, 2) lounge access for Admirals Club members.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...-airlines.html

You don’t count mileage redemptions AA miles for AS flights and vice versa?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by beachfan (Post 31321445)

You don’t count mileage redemptions AA miles for AS flights and vice versa?

I forgot - just after claiming MileSAAver First seats SMF-KOA on AS next month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDiver (Post 31321485)

I forgot - just after claiming MileSAAver First seats SMF-KOA on AS next month.

My AS mileage award for AA seats was less than the AA miles I would have had to pay for the same seats
Of course, I did have to pay the partner award fee :( - But, I am hoping for an upgrade, which I would not have been eligible for on an AA award.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvoight (Post 31321569)

And this may explain why it may all come to an end.

AS is picking up the tab and not getting much in return. It's all about ROI.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Often1 (Post 31322016)

And this may explain why it may all come to an end.

AS is picking up the tab and not getting much in return. It's all about ROI.

Seems highly unlikely this is coming from AS. The first set of degradation was due to government/AA wanting to degrade benefits. This would further limit AS options beyond the West Coast corridor, (they are also not planning on expanding and with the loss of DL and AA totally -speculation as of now- within the last 5 years, this would further put them into a regional carrier status). If AS really wasn't happy with redemption rates they would just change them as all airlines are doing. Seems AA is looking for ways to shore up their operations, beyond actually fixing their operations first and foremost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Often1 (Post 31322016)

And this may explain why it may all come to an end.

AS is picking up the tab and not getting much in return. It's all about ROI.

I think AS is getting a ton in return: AA is their primary partner to be able to offer global award redemptions for their members. The hole that AA fills in AS's award redemption network is enormous, whereas the hole that AS fills in AA's network is much smaller. But of course the cost to AA is pretty small as a fraction of their revenue. So it seems unlikely to me (without any knowledge) that AS would choose to cut off the remaining partnership. But I of course don't know any of the financial terms. And AS may value AA less as a partner given the paucity of actual availability; AA is in practice more useful for providing dots on maps all over the world than they are for providing useful awards that I would choose to put spend on my AS credit card to aspire to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Often1 (Post 31322016)

And this may explain why it may all come to an end.

Not a very good explanation, as it’s not material enough for it to matter to AA. And it’s increasingly less material for AS and AA as AA moves closer and closer to dynamic mileage pricing for award tickets on AA metal and making less space available at the low MileSAAver levels.

Before the Virgin merger, AA and AS complemented each other better, with the AA partnership enabling/encouraging those not located at airports with significant AS service to redeem AS awards more easily, although this was somewhat limited by the one partner per award rule. Now AA can still play this role, but it's much less necessary for those at airports with significant legacy Virgin service, so the percentage of potential customers/FFers who would be impacted in a major way in terms of the network by the loss of AA awards has become much smaller. In other words, the AS FF program needs AA less now for award tickets. OTOH AS might not be very enthusiastic to have FF participants who mostly fly AA, credit to AS, and redeem AS miles, while those who do the same from other carriers are more likely to be dispersed across airlines and credit miles from multiple carriers to AS. I can envision AS wanting to reduce its partnership ties to AA.

OTOH, since the AA/US merger, AA has had less need of AS to enhance AA's network. Even with the new Virgin routes, this is probably still true on balance as the Vrigin routes were generally already covered by AA/US. So on balance, there's also less incentive for AA to continue a strong partnership with AS.