AA dynamic pricing has begun. AA cards devalution

[Shadowfactor]

I've noticed several people on the forum lately saying how much they loved AA dynamic pricing and it's low cost awards. Well get ready for them to increase.

AA cards devalution. Yikes think of how long it would take the normal user to accure a J ticket earning at 1-2X per $.

Here's a prime example of dynamic web specials and how terrible it really will be.

These dates have MileSAAver space and Business sAAver space. Both are less then the web special. This is just the beginning.

Also TPG is reporting insanely high J award costs.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/aa-web-special-award-pricing-480k/

THE END is almost here.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been reading this this morning. Some of the flight options are pretty pricey rewards wise. I am looking at a round trip flight coming up to burn the rest of my AA miles. After that I will Have to decide if the cards worth keeping around.

I really think they need to increase the earning structure on the cards anyhow. 1-2x points per dollar is really hard to meet for day a 30k point ticket.

[Anonymous]

I think AA is following delta's foot step to a T, basically skyrocketing intl biz award costs. It seems economy redemption value still holds, and "web special" seems a permanent fixture now. I still find 10-20k domestic web specials, and 75k intl econ saavers (RT). I wonder what is AA's math look like behind the scene.

Truth is if you want better cpp, you just need to be flexible with dates. In the end, everyone know it is coming. Delta started this years ago, I don't think blogsphere and customers provided enough backlash at that time. That probably emboldened UA and AA to follow.

[CreditCuriosity]

ouch on tpg examples.   Suppose there goes my first class ticket to europe next year by AA miles .

Add a bit of salt on the injury they recently clawed back all those miles, granted alittle shady how they were obtained, but in the grand scheme of things most clawbacks might of got a one way ticket on TPG examples

[iced]

Keep in mind that across AA's customer base, the "average" customer is actually quite close to the bottom of the mileage-earning spectrum. While 30K miles may be a year's worth of work to the average kettle with a CC, to their Plat Pro and Exec Plat base 30K miles is easily attainable every year just from flying, if not multiples of that. Heck, I wasn't ever even close to being in the top 10% for UA and I still amassed over a million miles I'm still working on using up.

When you consider your typical Executive Platinum spends around $20,000 on AA tickets per year, at 11 miles per dollar plus say 2 points per dollar when putting it on a card, you're talking 13 * 20k = 260k miles/year. If they made J tickets attainable easily by the common flyer, the frequent ones would be drowning in free J tickets.

These programs' valuations aren't about Mr. Casual Flyer with a CC. They're about Mr. Exec Plat who logs 120 segments and 200k MQM a year. The more Mr. Plat flies and earns, the further they'll push awards for Mr. Casual CC. Them's the way the balls bounce.

[Anonymous]

well, thats one way to put peasants in peasants class and save fancy class for the fancys. lol

I think outrage aside, truth is delta did it for years and seems perfectly fine, so I am guessing collectively as a whole, its a winning business model for airlines. I will just stay in my peasant line and be content. There is no turning back anyway.

[mongstradamus]

I have a question about this devaluation, I tried reading the article, and it seemed like it was saying this affects only AA flights what about their partners does the increase also affect them. I have some AA miles maybe about 200k , was never going to use them for an AA flight and was saving them up for JL flight in a few years.

[Anonymous]

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@CreditCuriosity wrote:

ouch on tpg examples.   Suppose their goes my first class ticket to europe next year by AA miles .

Add a bit of salt on the injury they recently clawed back all those miles, granted alittle shady how they were obtained, but in the grand scheme of things most clawbacks might of got a one way ticket on TPG examples

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Agreed, that's exactly why I was pooling my AA Miles! When I first heard about this, I knew it wasn't goig to be good despite the deals some people were getting. Most domostic prices are absorbable to me, it's the international flights that I'd like a discount on!

So I will likely ditch the AA card early next year before the AF hits. 

[Loquat]

The wife and I have already ditched the Platinum Select. We're going to hold on to the AAdvantage Executive card as we still see a little value in the Admirals Club and it'll also help us be able to take advantage of the reduced milage awards as our city seems to always been on the list.