Antarius

As a customer, it makes no sense. For AA, as pure revenue with no cost, you're the perfect customer, despite what BlooJoo wishes to believe.

Antarius

Ta Da!

It's like complaining about a gym membership because they gym has too many members signed up. If none of them show up and the gym is empty, you're benefiting.

Fanjet

I think that is what people are not getting. The greatest cost liability to AA is the AAdvantage miles in members' account. Not members having elite status. And people will still be earning the same amount of FF miles with AA's partners as before. Moreover, if there are now going to be elites who are earning that status mainly because of partner spend, and not really by flying on AA, then that elite is even less of a liability cost to AA than the one who is. It costs AA nothing for people to spend money with AA's partners. But AA does make money when those partners buy AAdvantage miles to, in turn, hand out for those purchases.

thatmikereed

EXP status, but none of the ancillary benefits (SWU's, etc.).

mvoight

I eat mine with fava beans

Mister Nice

Wouldn’t it make more sense for AA to just charge $5000 for EXP and require that you use AA credit card ? Sure , they make money from selling miles to partners but they don’t get the entire purchase amount . If they charged directly they get the full $5000 and the revenue from the miles sold to the credit card issuer .

I know that US Airways for a couple of years let you purchase status all the way up to Chairman’s Preferred.

nk15

They want to keep up appearances, that this is about flying...

coleslaw

Doing that would damage the revenue stream from “selling points” to partners.

Plus the people who are willing to spend $5k for status are probably also the type of people who aren’t going to be particularly profitable

Mister Nice

I understand your point but disagree with second part based on personal experience . I took advantage of the US Airways buy Chairman’s Preferred (CP) opportunity . I wanted the access to what was then great CP phone reservations and benefits . I flew many paid F and International J flights on US that would have gone elsewhere , got a credit card , and bought a club membership etc . So , some status buys are definitely worth it for the airline. If folks buy status direct from the airline and don’t use it , then they are very profitable - no costs involved . If folks buy status and use it only for basic economy , well then they may not be profitable but are adding revenue .

bchandler02

Yep, I would bet that someone that was willing to buy status would milk every penny they could out of it (so, basically FTers).
The opposite is Jim Bob that has the AA credit card because he's "going to take a big trip someday" - and may or may not ever actually do it which means no cost to AA.

Antarius

And AA does have status challenges which are a halfway measure to buying status.

mrow

Indeed. Soon we will see CKs who never fly. How AA will make the CKs feel special is beyond me. I think I will just go for BA Gold Guest List instead as at lease I know what I am aiming for with that!

lrbenko

I would agree. I have a close friend that travels on a plane maybe once per year, and that's usually he and his spouse tagging along on one of my trips. Despite me explaining that getting the AA Citi Executive card may not be the best choice for him, he did anyway. Last year he charged a little over $125K on the card, and in 2022 he may be closer to $150K-$175K. He owns a construction company and a painting company and just puts all materials on that card and immediately pays it off. So technically, when we fly together after this year, he would probably have higher status than me (I'm not sure I can requalify for EP under the new requirements) and be higher in line for the upgrade, despite me flying over 120 segments (mainly domestic) for the past 10 years.

lrbenko

Just got my FTD Bonsai. here's a pic as promised. Certainly not as pictured, but I'm happy with it.

coleslaw

Well, in some respects a CK who doesn't fly is the best kind of CK. Both for AA (since they need to do very little for make them feel special beyond giving them a nice title, a shiny virtual card and some extra customer service support should they ever actually choose to fly AA) and for AA flyers/elites (less competition for upgrades and the non-flying CK is effectively "subsidizing" the travel experience). I think those non-flying CKs will be very few and far between.