Understood, and I hope you're correct. I don't recall (at least recently) any such bonus points incentive for this purpose.

So I ran some numbers to plan for next year. I'm a hybrid AS/AA flyer, often flying on the cheapest economy fare (non-basic) on either carrier (business travel), with some personal thrown in. Because I'm on bottom-half economy fares, it's a significant loss to credit flights to anyone other than the operating carrier (25-50% vs. 100%).

If I assume I'm Gold on AA and MVP on Alaska (both OW Ruby), and a typical flight on AS might be AUS-LAX-AUS @ $176 fare, even if could buy and fly the same fare on AA then AS is the much better program choice for me.

Buying AS, crediting to AS: 2476 EQM, 13% of the way to re-qualifying MVP. I need 8 of these round trips to re-qual.
Buying AA, crediting to AA: 1239 LP, 4% of the way to re-qualifying Gold. I need 25 of these round trips to re-qual.

I literally earn three times as much, status-wise, by buying, flying and crediting to AS. Where those routes overlap, AS becomes the obvious choice.

This also means making a mileage run to finally cross 1MM with AA and get Lifetime Gold is a much, much better value prop long-term for me now, as it means I only have to "focus" on one program. I'm 13,000 miles away from that.

Yes, there is a bit of loss in the overall power of partner tickets, but they remain a heavy favorite in their sweet spot, when you can routinely get 2x or higher EQD multipliers on dollars spent, which will translate to 20 or more Loyalty Points per dollar spent.

Yep, and it makes qualifying for Exp as a newbie is much more difficult.

Yes I agree that it is tougher to reach EXP on AA tickets in the new program as well however I think my statement that the change further devalues flying on partner tickets vs AA tickets" is still accurate.

Consider my example (EXP flying discount J JFK-LHR). If you assume a $4,000 base ticket cost, that would have gotten you 26.7% of EXP EQD ($4k/$15k) under old program and now gets you 22% (44/200) of EXP Loyalty points so a devaluation of 17.6% on AA ticket vs. the devaluation of 27% on BA/Partner ticket in my prior post, so clearly partner flying has been further devalued relative to flying on AA tickets although you are correct to point out that both have been devalued in absolute terms as well.

Delete

Huh?

That says "purchases of foreign currency" did not earn miles on the Executive World Elite card. That's not all the same thing as transactions in a foreign currency.

That says purchases of foreign currency (i.e., using the card to buy physical cash), not purchases in foreign currency.

AH, thanks I stand corrected and will delete. Apologies, taking in lots of info very fast has my head spinning!

Yes very good point. There will certainly still be sweet spots for partner flights depending on status, city pair, price, etc.

In a nutshell, AA will only give you eligible miles based on $ spent on the fare, what class you fly whether F/J is not relevant for calculating the eligible miles and therefore loyalty points. Whereas, if you fly international on partner airlines where eligible miles are calculated based on distance flown, cabin bonus and elite bonus, you could end up with more miles than you would on AA. It all depends on the AA fare for the route and the comparative partner mileage credit, you will have to plan in advance which option is better to optimize the maximum mileage earning ability per $ spent in such cases.

Even ignoring that 2021 requirements were reduced, the math still doesn't work. 12k EQD equals 132,000 loyalty points. So you would go from EXP to PP with similar travel patterns.

Credit card waiver is irrelevant, because that doesn't apply for EXP and you said you were qualifying for EXP this year.

I wonder if, in the long run, whether AA elites will move to UA and DL? I feel sick knowing that AA is running its program to the ground.

So AA, and I guess Delta to an extent, are saying

“If you are a flyer that flies a bit for business, a bit more for leisure, mainly domestic but maybe some international, and you like AA perks and are willing to put a lot of your non AA spending on a credit card, we will make it easier and easier for you to keep and gain status.”

Seems to make sense to me in a world with less expense account business travel

That‘s what I‘m also thinking - esp. if you are just after Emerald and based outside of the USA or outside of any oneworld Hub.