toomanybooks

1. I got EXP given for full 2020 year, through 1/31/21. Call came late afternoon Friday.
2. Signed up for the 3 month Plat challenge in late September.
3. Have had no paid AA flights in at least 4 years. Have none pending.
4. Redeem 9000 Avios for AA flights ex-ORD about 4-5 RTs a year
5. Concierge indicated she was told a certain number of EXPs to give away and had some leeway to decide whom. Not sure I necessarily believe that 100%.
6. Completed 60 nights for Globalist a couple months ago. My second time. 2/3 paid/points/free stays, rest via WOH CC.

Edited to add: I was once an EXP, during those crazy triple EQM fare days in 2010.

Visconti

Does the "gift" include SWUs?

Glob for about 4 years and avg about 80 - 100 nights per (though 30 or so are from MLife) and about 80K base points this year. Plat on AA from challenge, but have flown 0 miles and have no intention of meeting it. Only AA miles were from couple domestic legs credited to them with the int'l portion credited to AS, but do have about 750K miles from assorted CC (Citi & Barclay) activity and flights from several years ago. Haven't engaged with AA in several years, since I moved to AS.

With AS 75K and probably CX DM, only thing I'd value are the SWUs (assuming they're included) & my stash of unused 500 mile upgrades. As observed above, as a ZERO dollar ExPlat, I'd suspect the chances of an upgrade are almost nil, especially on my routes which are mostly SFO - JFK.

PS - Would like to compliment WOH on using the telephone rather than email, which is eventually plastered all over the net. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction where an element of privacy may be expected in these sort of promos/transactions.

stephem

$0 EXP wont yield many upgrades at all, even a $5-7k rolling balance of EQDs isn’t likely to get you many upgrades on most mainline AA routes. This is priority boarding, free seats w extra legroom and some free drinks when these “Gift EXPs” even choose to fly AA. No real competition for a real EXP who has requalified and has $15k in rolling spend.

andersonCooper

Correct. But for non-hub routes $0 EXP will yield some upgrades over PP and Plat. Those who BIS to Plat Pro or use e500 are more frustrated probably.

Also, 67 nights with 5 nights Chase credit this year, no offer.

ZBigFam

I have over 100 nights and I fly monthly with United mostly transcontinental. No offer, disappointing.

Kacee

It would probably get you 100% upgrades on OAK-PHX for example, which is the AA route I've been flying lately. But not at the expense of other EXPs.

If you fly OW airlines international the F lounge access is a huge perk.

Often1

In the short-term, the losers are PLAT PRO or below. In the longer term, the goal is, of course, to win more AA spend from a cohort who already spend a good deal on travel.

Put another way, if you are not top-level at UA or DL and have flexibility in carrier of choice, you may move over to AA.

LowValueCustomer

Did everyone who received this offer sign up for the Hyatt-->AA status challenge? I think I may have blown my chance by forgetting to sign up for the match (wouldn't have hit the miles anyway, but never hurts to enroll...)

Visconti

Ah, your concierge may have had the The or Fri off, and you may even receive a call today or even on Monday. They all seem to have different hours and some of them were vary considerably.

jtc246

I registered and haven't gotten the offer. My fingers are still crossed

joe_miami

I don't see how failing to meet the offered challenge would help someone's chances for a gift like this. This seems like a straight gift from Hyatt based on one's Hyatt stats and history.

notquiteaff

https://loyaltylobby.com/2019/12/06/...tt-globalists/

OMAAT, VFW had posts too that I refuse to link to. And probably others.

(and of course this very thread that may very well be the credit card hawkers/bloggers’ original source)

How does a phone call offer make any difference? Offers like this or the 50k UA RDM from Hyatt years ago to a subset of top elites will not remain a “secret” no matter how they are communicated.

Visconti

It's a step in the right direction, and marginally better than having an email plastered all over the net.

The problem with these sort of things is that it'll invariably and unnecessarily cause those who don't receive the offer, however deserving and for whatever reason, to feel slighted. That's just not good for business and should be avoided, if at all possible. Perhaps in today's world, discretion is impossible, but I recall a time when it was sort of expected.

If I had my way, we'd communicate more on the phone than email/text, not only for privacy, but for practical reasons too.

notquiteaff

I think in this case, practicality may be the reason for using phone calls. From what I read, concierges received a limited number (X) of gifts to distribute. If they used email, they’d have to send out X emails to their highest priority Globs and then wait for responses. How long do they wait for responses before deciding that someone they offered the gift to wasn’t interested and offer their gift to someone else (who was lower on their priority list).

The only way to avoid making some of those Globs who don’t receive an offer feel slighted is to not make such gifts without published criteria. Even in the pre-FT/blog days you had this problem, just on a smaller scale when some colleagues at larger companies would receive similar gifts and others wouldn’t. Water cooler chat instead of internet sites.

Dsnow0819

My concierge is out of office for the rest of the year so I assume I’m SOL.