Yes, in the Starwood days I would totally go out of my way to stay at a Starwood property... nowadays, it is whatever is most convenient, with credit card mid-level status at all the major chains.

The way that same-day standby works is that your order in the queue is based on the number of Loyalty Points (LPs) you have. She estimated 20+ people on standby for the flight due to misconnects, same day standby, etc. Because she had more (seemingly the most) Loyalty Points (LPs), she was placed at #1 on the list. They cleared about 5 people. Her getting a seat on the flight was attributed to the high number of LPs she has, where the others that did not get a seat was due to them having less, or none.

Had they been rolling dice for the order of the standby list, I would agree that luck was involved.

I've shifted to the hotels that I can get the most points at through AAdvantageHotels.com, close to my location, that are within my loyalty chains (Marriott/IHG/Hilton). I've had very good luck with them honoring status, even though booked through a 3rd party.
With the valuable international partner flight awards becoming less and less available (my next upcoming trip is about 7.5 CPM) , I may reevaluate next year.

It's seems that if you were CK (assuming it was earned, not granted) you, of all people, should very well understand that they only care about high spenders. "High spend" is literally the fundamental definition of CK, that is why that level gets the goodies :idea:

Regards

I was Exp for 8 years, dropped to plat pro, then lifetime platinum.

very happy as free agent. Once the Exp line at the airport was merged with the “anyone with an AA credit card” line, I saw the handwriting on the wall.

want f, buy f? Yes.

Buy aa f/j? Only if the have the best plane and the best schedule. Rare out of LAX, except their lax-JFK route, (which they will no doubt screw up shortly).

Of course, nobody disputes that part.
The chances of getting cleared off the standby list are directly related to status.

The fate of the original flight is completely unrelated to status.

As far as the free and high priority for standby perk. I don't value it much.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
At my age, I don't like the suspense of the standby roulette.
I do appreciate the same day confirmed change, which is also allowed WITHOUT status anyway.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0cec95523b.png

Agreed. But same day confirmed changes are only available if there are seats for sale. So far this year I've had three standby situations due to missed connections/IRROPS. I could not be confirmed on any of the alternate flights. Due to status, I had high placement on the standby list, and cleared all three. These were not convenience changes, there were "If I do not get on this flight, the next one is 6 hours from now, or I am spending another night in CLT. Made a big difference to me.

So I guess YMMV.

A few years ago, I was able to take advantage of SDFC quite often.
Now, IME, it's NEVER available for confirmed, and its rare I even see an option for standby.

(and btw, y'all, I never said that every road warrior is a 6 ft dude. Only that they are more often than the general public. FFS...).

dude, you DO realize '85 is the better part of half a CENTURY ago, yes? of course things are more miles these days. that should not come as a surprise.

In 2004, I spent 105,000 AA miles for a RT flight, LAX-SYD, on Qantas in first class.

I'll let you do the ROI analysis and let me know if there has been a devaluation since then.

--woodstock

It would be sort of difficult for the poster to perform an ROI analysis of your experience when you failed to provide what the cash price of your ticket at the time was. Given that the poster literally said, "before my time as an avid traveler" thus they probably aren't familiar with average tickets prices 20-30 years ago.

Regards

Fair point. Cash price was ~$11,000.

Why ya gotta call out my birth year like that? 😂😭

That's a great value!

Was that the typical redemption rate at the time - domestic, international, partners, etc. - or is that a "Well here's a unicorn I found one time..."?

dude you are a decade my junior, respect your elders! ;) 😭

Partner award redemption with AAdvantage miles are fixed price today. I'm pretty sure that they were back then, too. The difference between then and now seems to be greater difficult in finding premium-cabin partner award space on particularly desirable routes, along with the fact that redemption prices have gone up.