cmhua777

Not that recent, but a few years ago the best I could get AA to comp me as a 1K was instant Gold along with a Platinum Challenge. I was DFW-based and employed with a company which gives AA a healthy amount of revenue each year. They held firm that they just don't comp Exec Plat and, at least at the time, really only offered Plat through a Challenge.

dayone

Ever?

mvoight

That sounds fair. I recently found that I can only get 1P status on UA with my AA EXP status, as UA is our company's preferred carrier. I also learned that if I wait until Jul 1, I get an extra year of 1P status. My wife has a trip coming up in August and has to fly UA, so at least I can get some benefits if I fly with her.

tom911

I can recall one post here on the AA forum since I've been around, and it was a poster I met in San Diego back in 2001 which is why I recall his name. He posted in 2004, in a thread about status matches:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ch-status.html

He's a pretty heavy business traveler, though, so the dollar value of his travel may have been a factor in an EXP match.

skywalkerLAX

Yes I do believe that. Everyone has to start at some point in his life from 0.

What I think AA does is another topic. I just think it creates an elite program with as many holes as swiss cheese. Sure they want business - who doesnt.


It has nothing to do with forcing anyone. The offer alone attracts way too many people. Maybe I just overly dramatize it because I read about it everyday here and in other forums, no idea how much known this option is in public. They certainly wont advertise it in American Way

skywalkerLAX

I doubt any program has its purpose to generate elite fliers "for free".

Well at US you can buy the various Status Levels as well. They are actually not bad anymore on domestic routes but intl they are horrible. My recent trip to FRA on them taught me to never pay for TATL C on US !

jordyn

There's no doubt that challenges ease the pain, but there's still some period in which you're flying at the risk that if anything goes wrong, you'll get treated like crap and may be delayed for days; that you won't get on the plane in time to find room for your bag; and obviously there's the whole issue of the inability to get upgrades.

American has a good FF program--obviously most people on this board think it's the best. There are a lot of people who have looked at other programs and decided that they're better for whatever reasons. It's not at all obvious to me that American's program is so much better than the rest that it's worth a higher switching cost, and it's not at all obvious to me how American benefits from having a higher barrier to switching between carrier than its competitors.

brp

While I don't have access to the numbers, I'm sure you are. Just like the folks who think that double EQM promotions are creating large numbers of "excess" elites, the assumption that challenges are doing this is also incorrect.

Cheers.

gemac

It seems this gets discussed about quarterly on this forum. I am of the opinion that allowing someone who doesn't fly much to challenge doesn't hurt anyone much - it doesn't hurt the airline because the new flyer doesn't fly enough to receive much benefits, and it doesn't hurt other elites because they rarely have to compete with the new elite for scarce resources. Of course, if they new flyer does fly a lot, that really isn't a hole in the program, that is who the program is designed to attract.

AA was obviously concerned a few years ago that it was too easy to get status by challenging. They have recently prohibited challenges in the year when you are downgraded due to having failed to requalify for status you got through a challenge, and they have started charging for challenges. So they do look at the results, presumably the percentage of those who get status through a challenge who keep that same status by qualifying normally. They think it is OK the way it is, if they think it is not in the future, they will put in added barriers to challenges. Without access to the data they are looking at, how can we disagree?

steve32

AA stopped challenges the same year as one lost the same status because they were smart enough to close a loophole. The challenge is a boost to help gain the status that you think you can maintain in the future. Challenging the same year to lose status because you are not maintaining the status you want is trying to use a program loophole to get something you don't deserve to keep. AA is just being smart.

AA started charging for challenges because they had an opportunity to add another cash charge in an industry climate that airlines can start charging for lots of previously free services so as to try to keep profitable. This was an especially convenient addition to them as no other carrier has a challenge program (so noone else could refuse to match and likely get AA to back off from it), and if the flier does not challenge then AA gets to collect their plane fares longer before having to supply extra benefits (like waiving of luggage fees--which should be enough motivation for most who hear of the challenge shortcut to probably still consider it cost effective). Again, smart move.

Steve

PS--personally I'm very glad I was able to challenge (and double challenge!^) before this time of charging for challenges as well as luggage fees, and I am very very glad I recently made Lifetime Platinum!

steve32

The first flight ("positioning") I tried to take for my first mileage run (thus I had NO STATUS) went down with a mechanical. AA treated me very well in re-routing me quickly, and letting me switch the first of my short RTs (I was doing the double FLY3, so I had six short RTs back-to-back over two days) to the end, and letting me change one of the airports for three of the six of them to make the schedule work again (DAL and DFW being co-terminals made it less exceptional an exception, but they still had to do a lot of keying to re-juggle my flights back into line); then moving my "positioning" return flight back to after I had completed the re-scheduled 6 RTs.

The biggest help was walking into the airport as a knowledgeable person, rather than as a sheep. I will give FlyerTalk HUGE credit for that since it was reading the posts in this forum and the MR forums that got me to do the grunt work of getting the data and having copies of alternative flights in hand for when I talked with Reservations (I was guiding them as to how to fix the problem rather than blindly letting them figure it out from scratch), and for my using my cell phone to call to make the changes (and being on another flight within an hour of debarking the mechnical) rather than waiting for maybe a couple hours for the line of pax all working on the same re-routings with the airport GAs.

AA benefits because it does not make status completely cheap like the other airlines, thus status with American Airlines means more. Despite what many say is not stellar management technique, American managed to get through post-9/11 without going bankrupt, which is more than most of the others can say. Thus one should not be so quick to say American's methods are crap when they have been working better than who you think they should be matching with.

Steve

billgrates3

I think the challenge is the coolest thing existing on any airline's program!
You can go from being a worthless nobody, flying in some horrible middle seat in back, to 2X miles, exit aisle seats, lounge access, free upgrades, a bit of respect as PLT from GAs, TAs and FAs (sometimes), etc etc, in an incredibly short time, maybe even on a single outbound trip. [I know, my wife & 2 collleagues at work did it, and so did I, except for the single trip bit]

IMHO, the $150 may discourage a few, but it's still an amazing bargain!!

tom911

You have to wonder how many folks completed AA challenges, prior to the charge, just to use on a couple of flights, and never returned. It would be interesting to see how many of those flyers stuck with AA for a second or third year, but as that's proprietary information we'll just never know. Maybe they found agents were spending a lot of time processing challenges for passengers that bailed out on AA months later. A charge certainly could encourage them to retain their status and not bail out.

I recall one frequent FT poster did an AA challenge a few years ago, and upon completion went over to UA and used the status he attained with AA to get a comp there. He got instant status without flying a single UA mile and left AA. If they found a lot of flyers were following a similar strategy, I can see where the fee came about. This was in the days that UA did not offer challenges but would comp status.

oklAAhoma

I don't disagree with what you've said, but I'm wondering why you directed your comments to gemac. I am confident he had a pretty good understanding of everything you mentioned before you mentioned it.

Me, too.

kar don

I've been Gold medallion with Delta for four years in a row and now have started flying AA. I read that AA Plat/EXP, etc are getting delta medallion status by faxing in their membership cards. Does AA do the same thing for Delta Medallion members?