AAdvantage award Devaluation - Bookings from Mar 22nd 2016

[neon_crossing]

Again this has not changed.

I am talking about the change from USDM to AA.

Significant change.

except they might lose some folk back to other programs.

Exactly.

 

[Kangol]

I can't think of a OW carrier except for JL that flies there? And routing via Asia 1 is unlikely to be allowed as a single award.

Wishful thinking.. that's why I said may. One can only hope. Plus 40k down from 45k isn't so bad. You only save 10k if you can use the Guam method anyway.

 

[snabbu]

South Pacific to Asia 1 in J is the only good change, everything else is
Guam in SWP may also help

Yep. I was literally just on just on hold waiting to make a JL NRT-SYD booking in J to burn miles in fear of the pending "enhancements", when I rechecked the chart and saw that Asia 1 to SWP actually dropped 5k miles, just as the agent picked up the phone. I quickly hung up and will wait till after the enhancements and book.

 

[Lucas Groeneveld]

Ouch. Knew this was coming, but not this bad...

I have about 250k AA miles and all of my upcoming travel is already booked. Guess I'll use them for trips to Japan .

RIP MEL-AUH in First.

 

[Digger11]

So I assume that the bonuses to incentivise us to buy points will become greater as the actual value of the points is less ?

 

[exceladdict]

But they had become much more generous than their competitors.Not surprising that this has happened.Sites such as AFF and FT by increasing awareness therefore demand do end up adding to this process.

It's an interesting concept that you could buy 100k+ miles at a time, yet not burn on AA premium cabins. To non-USA-based pax (who must be targeted as they are not geoblocked), this is basically saying "buy our miles, we know you're going to cash them in on our partners".

Perhaps the cost to reimburse their partners for award tickets, particularly in F (no surprise with EY apartments coming on board) is what prompted this deval, moreso than a desire to be stingy to their loyAAl customers.

QF surprises me though as the cost QF charges AA for a return J intra aus/nz can only have dropped with the ~35% deval of the AUD.

QF, CX and BA availability <> USA will probably be the biggest winner from this change. QR, AY and EY to USA and non-USA will hopefully also benefit to a lesser extent.

Much disappoint for my personal future travel plans, although not unpredictable; semi-understandable, and at the least semi-interesting.

Please, Redroo, don't copy them! No need to chase a lowering bar of standards...

 

[The Flying Brick]

Anyone else noticed the phantom flights appearing on the AA advantage website? With the coming devaluation I thought I would jump in and book some first class flights from Brisbane to Dubai. The site is showing lots of availability for Sep/Oct 2016 for AASaver First.

Attempt to book any of those flights and you get a message saying the flights are no longer available and to try again.

The AA Website has been cactus all day - can't even book a domestic MEL - CNS without it crashing and the BA website has been acting pretty strange too (not showing QF flights earlier today).

 

[sergeyvzn]

The AA Website has been cactus all day - can't even book a domestic MEL - CNS without it crashing and the BA website has been acting pretty strange too (not showing QF flights earlier today).

not surprising at all - can you image the number of people (especially in North America) that are in panic and a rush to burn their AAdvantage miles? AA's servers simply can't cope

 

[drron]

It's an interesting concept that you could buy 100k+ miles at a time, yet not burn on AA premium cabins. To non-USA-based pax (who must be targeted as they are not geoblocked), this is basically saying "buy our miles, we know you're going to cash them in on our partners".

Perhaps the cost to reimburse their partners for award tickets, particularly in F (no surprise with EY apartments coming on board) is what prompted this deval, moreso than a desire to be stingy to their loyAAl customers.

QF surprises me though as the cost QF charges AA for a return J intra aus/nz can only have dropped with the ~35% deval of the AUD.

QF, CX and BA availability <> USA will probably be the biggest winner from this change. QR, AY and EY to USA and non-USA will hopefully also benefit to a lesser extent.

Much disappoint for my personal future travel plans, although not unpredictable; semi-understandable, and at the least semi-interesting.

Please, Redroo, don't copy them! No need to chase a lowering bar of standards...

I think it is much more like AA following QFF in bar lowering!

 

[Limewood]

Lucky me only have 45000 AA miles left since our recent Euro trip so its looking more like us returning to AS now.

 

[LA10]

I'm not sure if anyone has already posted this, but here are some comparison tables.
American Airlines AAdvantage Oneworld & Partner Award Charts Changes March 22, 2016 + Side By Side Comparison With The Current Chart | LoyaltyLobby

 

[leyy]

I am trying to make a redemption on AA. I have 2 accounts mine and my wife's, 160k each. How can I make it in one itinerary? Should i book 2 separate tickets on each account and hope for the best or should i call them to make the booking.

2x F (SYD-LHR) 320,000 points on QF.

The flights show as available, but every time i make a booking it shows :

• 
  [*=left]The flight you selected is no longer available. Please modify your request.

​

 

[Spizz]

That is phantom space and has been that way for a while. You need to find availability on the QF site (good luck as I couldn't find any as far out as possible) then you can book it via AA.

 

[DC3]

I am trying to make a redemption on AA ......... The flights show as available, but every time i make a booking it shows :

• 
  [*=left]The flight you selected is no longer available. Please modify your request.

​

There is (massive) phantom availability on AA.com. ExpertFlyer is pretty accurate, as is the BA website, so I've been using them for checking QF availability, and then going to AA.com to book.

Also, I saw glitches with the QF site some weeks back, not showing some flights that were available and bookable on AA.com.

 

[JohnK]

So I assume that the bonuses to incentivise us to buy points will become greater as the actual value of the points is less ?

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a loyalty program?

Punish those earning miles from flying and other partners but reward the gamers. Why?

 

[andye]

My feeling is that the enhancements do tilt the balance to flyers (particularly high-spending ones) as opposed to buyers. Worth considering that despite the AUD falling airfares have not increased proportionately.

Buyers can still get discounted award travel but its unfortunately no longer a steal.

Large credit card bonuses (especially in the US) are the area where the BIS flyer is disadvantaged by the consequent reduction in availability

 

[incumbent]

Punish those earning miles from flying and other partners but reward the gamers. Why?

Because businesses don't view things in such emotive terms?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a loyalty program?

Punish those earning miles from flying and other partners but reward the gamers. Why?

I think the purpose of loyalty programs these days is to make profit. Selling miles is extremely lucrative. You're gonna fly with them anyway because you have status and golden hand-cuffs. No need to worry about how many miles you're gonna earn actually flying.

 

[dfcatch]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a loyalty program?

Punish those earning miles from flying and other partners but reward the gamers. Why?

I think the purpose of loyalty programs these days is to make profit. Selling miles is extremely lucrative. You're gonna fly with them anyway because you have status and golden hand-cuffs. No need to worry about how many miles you're gonna earn actually flying.

Actually - the airline (well the loyalty program) would prefer that you didn't fly with the airline at all.

When you fly, in this case with AA - the AAirline has to purchase the points it gives you from AAdvantage (a separate entity). It purchases these points for a fraction of the normal value (or the "non-value" if the IRS or ATO asks). IIRC it's around 1/2 cent or just over.

When a non-status member flys, there is no cost to the airline to award points.

So from the airline's point of view - awarding points is a cost line item it would rather not pay, these new changes are designed to reduce the total quantum of points given out for flying, with lower revenue pax bearing most of the cuts.

From the AAdvantage point of view - every point sold to the AAirline is a point sold at a massive discount.

They would rather sell those points to you via buying miles, credit cards, hotels, car rentals, shopping, dining etc - where the points are sold for around 2-4 cents a piece.

Delta recently told me directly - (my words) - 'we don't care which way you're loyal (flying or credit card), we'll reward your loyalty and happily give you Diamond status even if it's solely from credit card use'.

 

[Danger]

Quite frankly Aadvantage is just catching up to others programs.And it is still better due to less taxes/fines.
My most frequent award is Japan to USA.So it has gone from 62500 to 80000 in F.I still consider that very good value.However I hope it does lead to increased award availability as that has been the real problem for me in the last 2 years.
And just looking at Australia to the USA 80000 in J and 110000 in F are still considerably better than QFF.As well far less taxes and the award stays the same whether you are flying to LAX or JFK unlike QF.Once again though I hope that they start releasing some J,F awards on their own SYD-LAX service after March 22.Unfortunately not that confident they will.

I could probably live with the devaluation of the award chart if they weren't simultaneously gutting the earning rates. Flyers are getting fleeced at both ends.