javabytes

Saver availability - or something functionally equivalent - will still have to exist so that partners can book AA flights for their own rewards members. AA will continue to use whatever logic they want to determine whether there are seats available in that inventory.

You can look to Delta for examples. Flights on Delta metal can often be had at cheaper mileage rates when booking partner awards through airlines that haven't devalued their programs as massively. After all, each airline is in control of how many miles it charges for a flight, even for flights on partners. So the fact that Delta went dynamic does not affect its partners' redemption programs. Partner programs can book award space Delta makes available, and charge their own customers whatever amount of miles they want, which can still be based on static award charts. So it's not uncommon that Delta charges exorbitantly more for the same flight when booked with SkyMiles under its own dynamic reward program, than one of Delta's partners charges would charge for the same exact flight under a fixed award chart. The same potential can be expected with American and its partners.

Before you get too excited, keep in mind how scarce saver availability has been, especially in premium cabins... the reality is partners will continue to get access to only a small subset of AA's award inventory. But in those relatively rare circumstances, yes, it's certainly possible that it will cost fewer miles to book those AA flights using a OW partner's award currency than AA is charging under its dynamic program.

Also keep in mind redemption rates at partner programs were often unfavorable compared to AA's Saver pricing. They're not as bad as AA's new dynamic pricing in most cases, but still a big devaluation from what you used to redeem for under AA award charts.

IADCAflyer

Loyalty Rial?

Howabout...

Loyalty Dong?

Catchy in more than one way...

rrgg

This isn’t a mere chart update so what does Citi think of this? I thought Aadvantage is a cash cow.

moondog

What's the positive spin in this update? (Typically, whenever they introduce a policy that is certain to be poorly received by the customer base, they try to fabricate some type of silver lining.)

GUWonder

When DL went to “dynamic pricing” of DL mileage tickets for DL’s own flights, it had almost immediate knock-on consequences for the AF-KL program, as DL effectively gutted a huge proportion of the availability of mileage ticket space on DL’s own flights when trying to redeem even AF-KL miles for DL flights. DL’s transition to dynamic mileage ticket pricing even came with some kind of sub-3 weeks-from-departure soft block when trying to use AF/KL miles for DL flights. And attempts to book award travel on DL domestic flights using AF-KL miles became much, much harder for sub-3-week travel upon DL turning on dynamic mileage ticket pricing.

Going dynamic — which is just a more extreme version of 3+ tier pricing — on award ticket pricing has negatively affected, and continues to negatively affect, partners’ redemption side of the programs.

Dynamic pricing — much like 3+ tier pricing — Balkanizes the programs’ redemption side by gutting availability for those trying to redeem partner airline program miles for an flight instead of the flight operator’s own program miles for the flight.
If I were Citi, I would think AA may be giving new life to Citi ThankYou points. When the airline programs go more down the Green Stamps route, it’s the banks’ own proprietary points programs that can pick up.

Arsene Wenger

Isn�t the tried and tested line to a switch to dynamic pricing that there are �more seats�/ �more availability�?

GUWonder

Yes, and it comes with worse mileage ticket prices for me.

thusband

This will no doubt be the same as Air Canada when they switched to dynamic pricing. The majority of flights increased significantly although availability did increase. Now and again there are deals to be had in business but it's rare unless you are booking a full 365 days out or a few weeks before.

rucksack

Yep. And there's some truth to this... I remember the days where your options for domestic awards were 30k for a nonstop or 12.5k for a routing with an awful layover. I could rarely if ever find a domestic award that made sense. I've found that the shift away from award charts has made it easier to find reasonable awards, especially domestically. But it's also much harder to find award flights, especially in long-haul J, that are a great value (>2cpp).

rucksack

Maybe, but Citi makes a lot of money slinging AA's co-branded credit cards, which depends on the attractiveness of the program. I don't think someone cutting up their AA Citi card is necessarily going to replace it with a different Citi product.

CaroPalms

However, I wonder if this was the catalyst needed to bring AA in as a transfer partner for the Thank You program. Especially with the rumored Strata lineup coming from Citi (supposedly at the end of this month, but that is a rumor as well).

Smiley90

No more changes is actually EXTREMELY annoying, because I've booked a long haul flight many times and waited for adding connecting flights when they become available. That's all gone now, because AA pricing will change and partner inventory isn't guaranteed to come back if you cancel. Damn.

robertablake

Just looked at award flights to Tokyo this fall - 850k miles for business - wow!!!?

PHL

Found a few in November LAX-HND one way in the 100-150K range. But these are far and few between.

moondog

It appears they have unveiled a special award chart for DFW-PVG (all flights are available for the same price, so nothing dynamic about it)