You haven't flown WN in a while have you? The cattle call has been gone for years. You get a boarding position and board in order. I'm A-List Preferred, so I get checked in at T-24 and get between A16-A20 every time.

It is. Otherwise they would not be the only major having never declared bankruptcy.

I have several friends who swear by WN. And WN fits their travel patterns - domestic for work and use companion pass and points to go to LAS, CUN etc. Regularly. Doesnt work for me, but doesnt mean it is a bad model at all.

You still have to be in line to get A16-A20. If you are late, stop for a beer or whatever, you're stuck. I enjoy showing up at T46, checking my bags and being the last (or close) to board, with my FC or MCE seat waiting for me.

Again, not a bad thing about WN - just different. It works for some and doesnt for others, and clearly it works for enough that they continue to be profitable.

I fly WN once a year or so when I absolutely have to. Even when you have positing a16-20 exit rows will be gone. Also if flight came from somewhere else and some passengers stay on board to continue on - they take all seats up front. Plus people who save seats for their companions. I like to have assigned seat before I board. Lining up before boarding begins is also stupid and you have to be at the gate when boarding starts. If you are 5 min late - all good seats are gone. Even when you fly LCC like Spirit you can pay to get exit row or their version of firsts class seat and priority boarding to have a peace of mind.

Which = 20-30 minutes of extra airport time getting to & standing at your post on time, per flight, to make sure you get to board in sequence, times 100+ flights = 40-50 hours per year spent making sure I have a tolerable regular leg-room coach seat on each flight I take. No thanks. :td:

also not sure if you can get A16-20 without paying for early bird during prime time flights. I usually do pay for early bird and lowest I got was a24 one time. Usually it’s higher so it probably adds up even more waiting around and lining up. As much as I dislike UA it’s far more superior to WN when it comes to boarding and hard product on domestic flights.

I disagree. I fly paid J/F and find status valuable 1. for access to F lounges, where being a no-status biz pax would get you an inferior lounge, much like when you fly LH J and get stuck in the terrible crowded "Business Lounge" instead of the SEN Lounge. 2. IRROPS as discussed. Finally, even if you are flying paid J/F, SWU still have value. While I can purchase a premium cabin ticket, you can be sure I use all my SWU to save $ on as many trips as possible. Why waste $ for no reason? If you're willing to do a little digging on EF it's not so tough to find time of booking C-space.

A-list and A-list preferred are auto checked-in at T-24h.

I think you missed my point. If I was lucky enough to have an employer pay for J or F I really wouldn't be complaining about anything at all, period.

Very polarizing subject. I left UA years ago because they stopped being an airline that even remotely cared about paying passengers and their hard product was terrible (who calls 8 across a 777 as any kind of business class) AA, for me, has been more than ok. I used to have corporate travel pay for about 40,000 of my annual 110,000 miles flown but those days are over. I pay for all of my travel and I value FC on 777-300 as I tend to try to do all of my long hauls on it. Its a great opportunity to use my SWU's and as an earlier poster said, I use them each and every year. They cost me a lot of money to earn. Domestically, each and every airline sucks. Jetblue has a decent product over a few marketplaces. AA is only good on transcon as is UA. Outlier routes with a 788 or 789 can be found if you're willing to look. EF is an efficient tool to aid in the process. In addition, I have a Barclay card and Citi card that help with miles and spend. So while nothing is perfect,
"You get what you tolerate". So if you tolerate it and live it, why ..... about it? Let your dollars do your walking and go to the best of what your looking for: routing, time of day departures/arrivals, hard product, soft product, etc. We each have something we care about. And for me, AA and Oneworld currently meets those criteria.

This thread could use a wiki: "Please note that this thread contains no actionable information whatsoever. 100 posts worth of speculation and pontification. Save your time!"

I completely hear you and this is exactly why every time FA/ISM asked me in CX metal and I was being 100% honest with them - I paid way more to CX than AA but I am stuck with AA FFP because MPC is not for me...

As this is an AA post I am not expanding this topic about MPC, but I think we have seen enough on CX forum.

If we didn't have threads and posts centered around speculation and pontification I'm not sure what we'd talk about on FT. To be fair if a major competitor of AA changes it's FF program it's a good bet AA will move in that direction. I'm sure for years AA (and others) has wanted to better align rewards with flyer profitability but of course had to worry about the competition.

The FF programs of 2010 are about as dead as complimentary meals in Y on a 1K mile flight.

Well the changes at UA are driving me to AA as my preferred carrier. UA devalued its MileagePlus program; changed how you upgrade internationally and then completely killed their elite program (my view) so I'm done. I've put up with years of lackluster performance and poor customer service because of the merger and I'm done. My 1K status is NOT worth $18,000 - they just aren't that good. Nothing has changed to make the value proposition there.

I know AA has significant problems but I suspect there will be a change and I can only hope they won't follow the path of UA. Call me naïve or overly wishful but that's what I hope. AA does lots of things better than UA right now and I always find the FAs very accommodating. I enjoy my time flying which is more than I can say on lots of UA flights.

AA will probably change AAdvantage but not until delta does it. AA usually only copies what delta does, not United.