hxhbk

I received and responded to the survey.
In my case, the future of business travel (equal mix of domestic and international) does not look as bright as pre-COVID since my work is still being adequately done via videoconference.
From a 70% business/30% pleasure travel mix, I am expected to see the reverse scenario (30% business and 70% pleasure).
Therefore, I no longer put an emphasis on the number of SWUs. I prefer other offers such as: xxx$ travel credit, xx% reduction in mileage requirement for free trip. Even the offer for a free annual Admiral's Club membership sounds good to me also since I have been paying for my own.

TomMM

Nah, people have short memories and there will always be a new batch of status seekers.

VFR

In large organizations like an airline, accounting will need to assign a cost to benefits such as SWUs. It is likely (given that the SWU requires the user buys a revenue fare and it comes out of inventory that is unlikely to be sold) that the airline values all of these benefits in a roughly similar way -- whether they spend $200 on a pair of headphones or 2 SWUs doesn't matter much to them. If SWUs start actually being worth thousands (e.g. by taking up more seats that could have been sold), some heads are going to turn at accounting.

MarJon

I made that exact statement at the end of the survey in the comments section.

iadisgreat

None of the options presented have any value over the SWUs IMHO.

golfingboy

Got the survey and submitted my responses. What frustrated me a little is I get four choices (1x at Plat Pro and 3x at EXP) but the plat pro options are “diluted” (I.E. 1 SWU vs 2, $200 travel credit vs $250, 20K miles vs 25K, etc). I suggested that they make the value of the choice equal across all levels but the differentiation will be that platinum pros will only get one while EXP gets four. Keeps the program more simple and avoids the issue of an EXP who doesn’t know the choice benefit seeing they picked 1 SWU at the Pro level only to realize when hitting EXP they could use one to get 2 SWUs instead.

At the end of the survey they asked for general suggestions to improve the AAdvantage program. I provided two suggestions:

1. Create a new award inventory bucket that provides significantly more saver premium cabin award and upgrade inventory that can only be booked out of members of certain elite status’ accounts( I.e. Platinums and higher). Similar to what UA does. Rewards certain customers while protecting revenue.

2. Drop the same routing restriction rules from the same day flight change program. What is the point of flexibility when the benefit terms are inflexible.

SFO_FT

They must be running different surveys as the one I got provided for a total of 3 (1 at PRO and only 2 at EXP). Survey stated a max of 2 for the EXP level. Given AA's general pull-out from long-haul LAX ops, there's just not enough value at 3 eVIPS to try to retain EXP. The UA system, which enables top elites to choose from domestic and int'l UPGs works pretty well in terms of enabling each elite some control over how to use UPGs.

golfingboy

The 2 max language is actually how many times you can pick this benefit at the EXP level. So you can pick one SWU at the PRO level then pick SWUs twice at the EXP level (2+2) for a total of 5 SWUs.

VFR

I can't tell from these replies whether people all got the same survey (1 choice at PP, 3 choices at EXP, 1 PP choice is redeemable for 1 SWU, and you can redeem 1 EXP choice for 2 SWUs a maximum of 2 times) and are just confused by the structure, or if AA actually tested different surveys where some folks got fewer SWUs.

Nobody is talking about the fact that the 35% mileage redemption discount (at least in the survey published on OMAAT) requires 2 EXP choices. Giving up 4 SWUs for 35% off an award for 2 people might be worth it if you have a big redemption planned for that year, but I'm not sure...

skunker

I picked that one every time along with the PP SWU and 1 SWU option for EXP (for a total of 3). There was also one iteration that had a 50% redemption discount that I selected and rated the highest. 50% reduction on 2 people on oneworld or even AA's ridiculous redemption rates would be huge.

chrisdenver1

The SWUs have been pretty worthless (going back to the US Airways version) for me. I want to use these for international travel, but have only been able to use them only once successfully. Seems a waste to use them for the short, domestic leg of the trip.
As for the survey, I zoned out after about 10 questions. Doesn't seem like they have anything that's an improvement.

chrisdenver1

I should also mention that I normally do 3 international vacations per year (pre-COVID). Very little luck with the SWUs, but normally plan less than 30 days out.

apeortdz

Interesting. I have been EXP (or Chairman on US) for 11 years and I have never let one SWU go unused. Usually PHL-LHR or LHR-PHL.

mrow

Almost the same for me...have been EXP since 2007 and have only ever had one SWU expire on me and that’s because a flight very close to the expiration date was cancelled and I was moved from F on AA to J on BA at JFK. At the time my priority was returning home so I wasn’t keen to reschedule for the following day on AA so I could retain my F upgrade.

All of my SWUs have been used on International travel or on the NYC-LAX route, so I feel I get good value out of them. I usually I buy J and SWU into F and I’ve always found it very easy to secure F seats with a little bit of flexibility on the day I want to travel. However as I travel for leisure flexibility isn’t usually a problem for me, but I recognise that it may be for others if they’re travelling for business.

SFO_FT

Either I didn’t have enough coffee that morning or the survey was even more confusing than necessary or BOTH, but I could have sworn it provided at the EXP level: for up to 2 selections of 1xSWU (ie, a total of 2 SWUs) + 1 additional (generally low value) option. If anyone can screen scrape a copy, it would be interesting to see.