AAdvantage devaluation coming?

[Mattg]

Gary at View from the Wing has written a blog post explaining why he expects a rough AAdvantage devaluation in coming weeks, and it seems many in the industry agree that something is coming.

Hope it's not too bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see the end of proper AA award charts - similar to the path United & Delta have gone down in recent years.

Of course, American keeps pushing its members to buy miles in the meantime - it just announced a 35% discount the other day.

The Top 5 Reasons To Expect An American AAdvantage Devaluation - View from the Wing

The AAdvantage program is the annuity that's been driving free cash at the airline for years. They'd be wise not to kill the goose, and the odds they're good enough to extract even more value out of it for themselves without killing it seem less than 20%.

viewfromthewing.com

 

[drron]

I've been expecting it for a while.fortunately have already got my JAL F awards back from LHR through Aadvantage.

 

[bam71]

I wish there was a nice easy way to earn AA points here in OZ ( apart from flying..)

 

[NM]

I wish there was a nice easy way to earn AA points here in OZ ( apart from flying..)

The only option I use is laundering points from:

Amex -> Marriott Bonvoy -> Aadvantage

in bunches of 90K Amex -> 60K Marriott Bonvoy -> 25K AAdvantage

A little while ago there was a limited-time promotion with a slightly better rate for Amex -> Bonvoy which meant 72K Amex laundered to 25K AAdvantage.

Not great conversion rates, but the best way I have found for sourcing AAdvantage miles in Australia. And I generally have considered AAdvantage miles to be of considerably higher value than Qantas FF point. I have around 300K AAdvantage miles in the bank and hold Lifetime Gold status, so I am hoping the predicted devaluation does not impact my retirement plans.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Gary at View from the Wing has written a blog post explaining why he expects a rough AAdvantage devaluation in coming weeks, and it seems many in the industry agree that something is coming.

Hope it's not too bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see the end of proper AA award charts - similar to the path United & Delta have gone down in recent years.

Of course, American keeps pushing its members to buy miles in the meantime - it just announced a 35% discount the other day.

The Top 5 Reasons To Expect An American AAdvantage Devaluation - View from the Wing

The AAdvantage program is the annuity that's been driving free cash at the airline for years. They'd be wise not to kill the goose, and the odds they're good enough to extract even more value out of it for themselves without killing it seem less than 20%.

viewfromthewing.com

From the accounts by Gary it's sounding like it will be 'brutal'.

I like Aeroplan's model - some seats available at the basic rates, 'any seat' awards slightly more expensive (and nowhere near QF's 'anyseat' offering).

The anomaly continues to be partner award pricing/redemptions. As long as we can maintain that across programs there should always be some basic/saver/cheapest seats available, even if more limited.

 

[bam71]

The only option I use is laundering points from:

Amex -> Marriott Bonvoy -> Aadvantage

in bunches of 90K Amex -> 60K Marriott Bonvoy -> 25K AAdvantage

A little while ago there was a limited-time promotion with a slightly better rate for Amex -> Bonvoy which meant 72K Amex laundered to 25K AAdvantage.

Not great conversion rates, but the best way I have found for sourcing AAdvantage miles in Australia. And I generally have considered AAdvantage miles to be of considerably higher value than Qantas FF point. I have around 300K AAdvantage miles in the bank and hold Lifetime Gold status, so I am hoping the predicted devaluation does not impact my retirement plans.

Yes, I did know about that hack, but found it wasn’t really worth it when wanting to travel J from OZ to Europe, which is what we do.

 

[kpc]

What is the fee for cancelling an AA award flght....thinking of booking something next year but may need to cancel. Thanks

 

[VPS]

Might be time to use mine up

 

[drron]

At the moment you can still cancel without fee though you do have to ask for your points back as they don't automatically reinstate them.

 

[kamchatsky]

I still have a lot of AA points. My issue is now that I have so many points at SQ that I cannot use now, I have to use the SQ ones first before going burn AA points ......

 

[drron]

I still have a lot of AA points. My issue is now that I have so many points at SQ that I cannot use now, I have to use the SQ ones first before going burn AA points ......

Exactly how I am doing things.have more than halved my KF points with 2 trips to Europe so no longer any expiring in the next 12 months.I did transfer a swag of Velocity points just before you could no longer do it so have a while to use those up.

 

[burmans]

Ok so maybe I should be looking to burn some of my points ASAP. Planning a trip to Europe next year, maybe time to get serious and lock something in.

 

[FromTheRail]

Ok so maybe I should be looking to burn some of my points ASAP. Planning a trip to Europe next year, maybe time to get serious and lock something in.

Pretty hard to find anything just now, i'm looking to do the same, plenty of ghost availability on Malaysia which is a pain

Edit, if I just put it to LHR it's not too bad up until June

 

[burmans]

My real problem is I want to go a bit later, ie Aug/Sept. Extremely little available as you say and wife does not want to go MH.

 

[drron]

My real problem is I want to go a bit later, ie Aug/Sept. Extremely little available as you say and wife does not want to go MH.

I don't think most have loaded their award availability that far out.Had no problem ~10 days ago getting F on SQ and JL to and from Europe in March/May.The JL was using AA points.
But for our trip August/September was a different story.SQ only had saver awards in J and not every day.No saver awards at all in F or Y.

 

[JayTee]

Gary at View from the Wing has written a blog post explaining why he expects a rough AAdvantage devaluation in coming weeks, and it seems many in the industry agree that something is coming.

Hope it's not too bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see the end of proper AA award charts - similar to the path United & Delta have gone down in recent years.

Of course, American keeps pushing its members to buy miles in the meantime - it just announced a 35% discount the other day.

The Top 5 Reasons To Expect An American AAdvantage Devaluation - View from the Wing

The AAdvantage program is the annuity that's been driving free cash at the airline for years. They'd be wise not to kill the goose, and the odds they're good enough to extract even more value out of it for themselves without killing it seem less than 20%.

viewfromthewing.com

Hi Matt, thanks for replying to my post. Seeing as I have a limited understanding on what miles devaluations mean, I was wondering in the more simple terms what this means for AA.. I recently purchased 150k miles through AA. Should I hold on to them or at the very least, make a outbound booking now for next March

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi Matt, thanks for replying to my post. Seeing as I have a limited understanding on what miles devaluations mean, I was wondering in the more simple terms what this means for AA.. I recently purchased 150k miles through AA. Should I hold on to them or at the very least, make a outbound booking now for next March

Make the booking now. Devaluations won't affect tickets already redeemed/purchased.

 

[k_sheep]

At the moment you can still cancel without fee though you do have to ask for your points back as they don't automatically reinstate them.

Oh thanks for the reminder! I cancelled one like 2 months ago and forgot to chase

 

[burmans]

I don't think most have loaded their award availability that far out.Had no problem ~10 days ago getting F on SQ and JL to and from Europe in March/May.The JL was using AA points.
But for our trip August/September was a different story.SQ only had saver awards in J and not every day.No saver awards at all in F or Y.

Yeah, 330 days out so August ok, but only first few days of Sept. Also some like Qatar seem to have lots of flights from Oz but none the other way loaded.

 

[JayTee]

hey B, how far out are you seeing Qatar award flights available for redemption out of Sydney >