As a longtime hostage to American Airlines frequent flyer program, I have been pretty pleased in the last few years when both Delta and United made a bunch of changes significantly devaluing their programs and leaving AA ahead of the pack in a number of ways. Particularly, the cost of mileage tickets on partner airlines has been much better. So it was with great trepidation that I waited back in the fall for the details of AA’s changes, which were to go live in March 2016.
Unsurprisingly, the changes are awful almost across the board. The biggest blow for me was the huge increase in the cost of mileage tickets on partner airlines, especially in upper classes. First class from US to HKG on Cathay has gone up by 85,000 on a RT ticket. It’s now 220K. That’s an insane increase.
Faced with this impending doom, I decided to try and lock in something at the old rates. Now I know 1st Class on Cathay is tough to come by, but I’ve done it a number of times in the past. I figured that, with flexibility, I’d be able to get at least one ticket. Nope. I checked every single day of the year (or as far as they go out - not quite 365 days) and there was not a single 1st class ticket available on any flight, on any day, between JFK and HKG on Cathay. It took ages, and I had to prove I was a real person 5 times by identifying pictures, but I did it. Not one seat. I’ll be very disappointed if seats miraculously become available starting on March 23 when the new levels kick in…
One of the main reasons AA gave for the changes was “coming back inline with the industry.” What an industry it must be, when competitors deliberately sink to the lowest common denominator rather than strive to win customers by offering more and better programs and service.
Chris Matthews on MSNBC has a segment at the end of the show called Tell Me Something I Don’t Know.
And now, AA joins UA, Delta, and SouthWest at the bottom. It was a nice ride while it lasted. I miss the good old days when I could cash in my miles to fly foreign carriers at the same low mileage cost. I remember a time when I could only use my miles on my domestic carrier. There were no alliances until the 1990’s. It was a thrill to fly LH, SQ, NH and OZ. Better soft and hard product than AA and UA.
At least AA allows first class award ticket purchases on partners. Delta doesn’t even offer it.
I’m sure the changes aren’t news to anyone at this point, but the fact that there was not a single seat offered all year long was disappointing and, yes, surprising.
I’ve burned off almost all of my AA miles in the past 8-10 years, assuming that it was inevitable that they would become much less valuable, as they were so easy to earn. It was a great ride while it lasted.
Have you noticed that the price of a barrel of oil and all kinds of fuels is down big time? Airfares? Not so much. It only goes one way. Keep the fares high. Make your miles unusable and devalue them at the same time. Not only that but service sucks, planes are too full, and you have to eat your kneecaps in coach.
Agree that it has become much more difficult to plan travel with miles. The biggest issue with using miles on partner carriers is the taxes. It can cost nearly as much as a cash ticket to fly BA to London (for example). I did recently manage to get a ticket over and back from SFO to CDG on AA, outbound in business, for 70k miles, though I’m having to make 2 stops on the way home to do it and get in at a reasonable time. Can’t really complain that much, it’s a perk, and you just have to realize that it takes planning pretty far in advance.
More difficult and a LOT more miles. Even the rates on AA metal are going up.
As for the tax thing, my understanding is that it’s a “luxury” tax in London - you only pay those high rates if you’re going business or first. I haven’t encountered them elsewhere at nearly the same level.
Sarah, what site did you use to check? It’s not searchable on AA.com; I assume you used BAs site.
Cathay has restricted award availability tours partners, usually only one seat when the booking date comes into the booking horizon. Then they might release another within a few days of flight departure.
I’m not an AA defender, but this has been an issue since the fall due to CX action.
AA miles are good (now) for flying AA metal only. We still hoarde them as we travel to the Caribbean often. They are pretty useful there from ORD.
If you want flexibility to fly business/first internationally I really thing Amex rewards are the way to go. You can transfer Amex rewards points in to many different FF programs and get the best choice of seats. I have done this for our family of 4 - 3 times now with excellent results. I have 4 - 1 way business class tickets booked on KLM though flying blue from ORD - BCN this summer. Cost me 200K Amex points. While relatively expensive points wise I had a huge choice of flights so we chose upper deck on a 747 via AMS. Flying home direct from Madrid on Iberia in coach. Last summer Amex offered 30% transfer bonus to flying blue and I got 4 economy comfort seats on Air France direct to Paris for less than 100K points again with lots of flight options.
Yes, I use the BA site. That must be a CX change as you say - I have never before seen zero seats available near-term (just a few days out) or long term (nearly a year) or anywhere in between.
Scarcity of seats is nothing new, though. I’m more complaining about the AA action that raises the rate by 85K miles!!
Yes, that sucks. Combine that with earning drastically slashed (I will only get half the miles I used to for my lax-Mia milk run, and that is as an exec platinum)! Half the number of SWUs next year too,
This is true at 100K EQMs but to be technically correct, you can earn 2 additional SWUs for each additional 50K above the 100K up to a total of 8 . . .essentially, twice the EQMs to earn the same 8 SWUs
True, and paid business or first class will give you 1.5 or 2.0 times the number of EQMs.
As far as AA awards on BA flights, it’s high not just due to taxes (“APD”) at LHR, but also very high “carrier imposed surcharges” (YQ, formerly known as “fuel surcharges”). AA awards on Iberia has much, much lower YQ, so even if you go to LHR (via MAD), the total dollar cost of an award is much lower. Never book a BA transatlantic coach award. As pointed out above, the dollar cost means you might as well just buy the ticket.
Just booked a long Hong Kong weekend over Labor Day, CX J on the outbound with AA J on the return through PVG to give the new 788 a try. CX still has fantastic J availability and even with the devAAluation, it’s only increasing by 15K. CX F was always a sweet spot on the award chart and greatly underpriced, a big jump yes and a change that probably needed to happen to curb demand. All of this won’t matter is CX cuts off F redemptions and limits them to only MP members.
Miles will be harder to come by under the new AA but the credit cards will still be plentiful. I’m still burning through my stash from the mad exec card churn of 2014. The devAAluation doesn’t impact me too much, only on the redemption side as I didn’t fly a single revenue aa flight in 2015, all my miles came from cards and MS.
