joe_miami

I’d like to see the list of things that AA has done that, e.g., an AA Plat Pro who spent $13,000 with AA this year would find more offensive than suddenly being outranked for upgrades by people who failed a Gold or Plat challenge earlier this year.

Visconti

I'm not an overly emotional dude, but this would seriously p*ss me off.

LowValueCustomer

One would think. Maybe they figure there's a point of diminishing returns where particularly HVCs are unlikely to change behavior either way?

GopherMSP

I got the EXP offer from Hyatt today over the phone. I didn't even bother signing up for the challenge this fall because I fly mostly DL (I have four segments on AA this year, all on short CRJ/ERJ segments). I took the offer because I've been wanting to try some AA partners on international trips, so at least now I can earn more miles when I do so.

Often1

Given that it is a subset of hotel HVC's, it is presumably people AA believes are valuable targets.

People swore that when UA and DL started to offer low-cost paid UG's which, of course, trumped elite freebies, that the insult would kill of both carriers. It did not.

The same will (not) happen here. A few people will be disgruntled and if they have rational travel choices on another carrier, perhaps they will jump ship or simply spread their business. But, so long as that is made up for with the new HVC's, it is a win for AA.

HVC is also not about spend, but about profitability. High spend on low PRASM routes might not do so much. Lots of paid F on TPAC might.

josephstern

If you're going to pay for F on TPAC, why do you care about status? For the extra RDMs? I can't see any other reason, and those RDMs aren't worth a lot to someone paying for F TPAC.

spgplat21

I won't belabor the point since this is the Hyatt forum, but if you're happy with the direction of the AAdvantage program and AA in general over the last couple years, good for you. There have been at least 2 or 3 devaluations, included the pretty major one back in 2016, that I can think of. SWUs are tougher to use than ever, Saaver award space is non-existent on many routes, airline maintenance and on-time performance have gotten worse, customer service and in-flight service have both declined as well. Other than having a lot of flights to many non-stop destinations and still having some pretty good partner redemptions, there have not been a ton of positives.

The only real risk in this is that one of these globalist members (who apparently never fly on AA anyway) take the same flight as such person and steal an upgrade from them. Practically, the chances of that happening are so small any outrage would mostly be misguided.

Often1

Because there is an important cohort of passengers who fly paid F/J on business travel, but who cannot swing that for leisure travel especially with a family. The notion that HVC's are all individually wealthy is not likely the case.

MarkOK

The sooner we realize the whole elite game is smoke, mirrors, and magic tricks all designed to eek out additional margins, the more all of it makes sense.

The thing about AA's program is that it is all sorts of whack. It doesn't matter if you spend 20K for flights for your family, because your status only depends on the cost of flights your own bottom sits in, meaning that even moderately higher income families have to reach for moderate-tier (and mostly worthless) status unless one individual has significant work travel. Within the program, the value of the bennies is all over the place -- Someone with 10K in spend in some markets with certain flying patterns will have near 100% domestic upgrade rates, while 20K in spend in other markets with certain flying patterns will get you much much less. The program SWUs are only really valuable to people that have the flexibility to pounce on their limited availability on long haul flights. Having all the baggage allowance doesn't mean much of anything to almost anyone. International and premium lounge access only benefits those exec plats on international flights from/to certain airports. Most globalists (like myself) getting this gift aren't really going to get all that much out of this compared to most of the true Exec Plats that fly long haul international routes several times a year for work, or some of those road(air) warriors based in a non-hub market that will have a more comfortable flying experience for the weekly rut.

I'll take the gift, get some MCE seats out of it (a lot of which go to BE customers anyways), maybe I'll get lucky and get a domestic Saturday afternoon upgrade on it (doubt I'll even be in the top 10 in the upgrade list on my Monday and Friday DFW-DCA, DFW-BOS, DFW-LGA and DFW-MIA flights I know I'll need to take next year), and I'll get some extra redeemable miles I won't be able to use for anything all that good. So what, there are people that are ExecPlat by crediting long haul discount fare flights to AA on other airline metal just so that they have miles and SWUs every year to use for some valuable upgrade space.

josephstern

Has anyone heard either way on whether this offer includes SWUs?

LowValueCustomer

I don't think I've ever heard of full year EXP that doesn't include SWUs. I'm assuming this is under the same framework as the CK gift EXPs, and I haven't seen any reports that giftees miss out on SWUs.

edcli

Big ole' trombone sound for me. Would have been nice.

dpb132

I got the offer this morning. I had sent an email to my Concierge over the weekend, who left a voicemail asking me to call back (did not reveal the offer in the voicemail itself).

Hyatt 2019 - 112 nights, 47K points
AA status - Gold (have been Platinum in the recent past, but not much AA business in 2019 so would have otherwise lost status)
Concierge relationship - Occasional email, today was the first phone call.
Linked AA with Hyatt account in 2019 - yes
Registered with the AA status challenges in 2019 - yes

steveholt

Imagine how annoying it would be for Hyatt mid-tier elites to miss out on a suite upgrade to a AA elite who was handed Globalist status!

footastic

Just got a ring - offered as well.

146k base points
93 nights
Used plat challenge
had explat and up for years dropped in 19 to kettle when I moved to delta