It's funny to say this, as I'm one of the many that sticks with AA only because of the loyalty program. That said, they've decimated their route network (at least out West) to the point where it's an absolute joke.

I've become so fed up with the loyalty thing that it really doesn't hold much value anymore when I have to position somewhere else just to use a mileage redemption or seek an upgrade.

If they do this, it would honestly almost be a relief to me so I could just cut bait once and for all, LOL.

I would like to suggest to you that you expand your knowledge and read up on the topic of market irrationality. I found it interesting studying it in B school. You may perchance gleam some golden nuggets so that you can avoid making such comments.

And I think a relief to others as well. I do find this whole thing quite irrational. Especially when I read of people doing tier runs or mileage runs or whatever they are called.
I stick with AA for business travel, because I have no choice. For personal, it's last resort. I go by which carrier I think has the best product that will get me there in the comfort I desire. AA's fare has to be substantially cheaper for me to consider it, if it is the metal being flown.

It's already happened. I'm looking at tickets to ICN in June, and AA wants 800K miles RT for business class for every date.

Delta wants 500K.

United wants 439K.

All are outrageous, but I see no advantage for AAdvantage anymore (unless you're using your miles on domestic flights).

Have you considered an award on JAL from USA to Tokyo for max 80,000 and then figuring out Tokyo to ICN? I have only flown AA international longhaul once in 10 years (EU to USA) and I was so not impressed. I can't imagine flying it USA to Asia when there are better alternatives.

From what I observe, they seem to be good at doing that snatching thing...

Would require a double connection.

Unless your home airport is a fortress hub of AA, most people will either choose based on price or product. AA has sometimes competed on price, but the product is a hot mess compared to DL and UA. The quickest way to compete would be on the soft product, as the new hard product (321XLR has gotten horrible reviews so far) is fine, but not game changing.

This mess was a decade in the making, and it won't be turned around quickly. Isom and mgmt may not be the right team to turn it around but a change for the sake of change is pointless. AA is being forced to go premium because they handed out labor contracts that drove cost levels above their competition. That's bad news for an airline that has never been premium before and has no appetite to spend the money it takes to become premium.

And Revenue Management totally botched the execution of MRTC. Instead of actively trying to do business differently on the pricing and YM side, all RM could do was what it had always done. When in doubt, match.

There's not really anything RM can do if it's only a minority of flyers who are at all willing to pay more to get more than the room you get with 31" pitch (modern slimline seats) and the product is throughout coach. Charging for the seats with more room and bundling more with them isn't only an RM job.

They need to make a clean sweep in the C suite. Cleaning out the boardroom would help, too. This management team has made a series of terrible decisions, has no clue how to fix things, and has lost the confidence of pretty much everyone.

The last straw was the COO claiming AA's IT performed well during the recent storm, essentially denying the meltdown that many of us experienced. And contradicting his own CEO who had admitted they had staff sleeping in airports.

A big issue for AA compared to UA (DL isn't as big a deal bc of how much they've decimated their program to begin with) is how limited partner premium cabin award availability has gotten. BA/QR/CX/JL/AY/IB are all airlines that I know release a material amount more longhaul saver awards to their own customers vs general oneworld availability. BA tends to be the best still, but that's likely because the crazy surcharges make it a much tougher value proposition for many to justify.

I am beginning to wonder about the benefits of these alliances and their necessity. They all seem to be evolving at they each try to squeeze as much revenue while providing as little as possible.

Yet DL has been and continues to be one of the most profitable airlines.

I don't have hard data on this, but AA has outsourced most of it's intl routes to OneWorld partners. There are a handful of routes to Europe that AA flies its own metal, but BA is their partner for any European destination. AA may fly a frequency here or there, but BA metal is doing the bulk of the frequencies. Same for Asia, with JAL and Cathay doing the heavy lifting. The only time you really see AA metal is out of their MIA hub to Latin/South America and that's not heavy premium demand in the same way as Europe and Asia. This doesn't seem the case for DL and UA, who fly their own metal to more destinations, and control their route map. AA prefers to fly to partner hubs and feed the network, it remains to be seen if their newer non-partner hub routes will be successful.

AA is primarily a domestic airline and that's not the place to be in 2026. The demand is premium intl and transcon, and that's areas where AA is weak and also means they have little control over award availability. DL and UA are headliners of their alliances, AA is a cog in the OneWorld machine.