Citi and Barclays AA cards devaluation coming

[Shadowfactor]

Edited.

I should have investigated more on a computer where things are clearly labeled.

What you are describing is AA anytime award. I had never done award searches on the app before so I didn’t really understand late last night they were anytime awards. I thought it was saver level because it wasn’t cleared marked

[Anonymous]

If they don't fix this extremely basement valuation soon, they might just have killed it's own credit card business.

They really need to put in a floor for this, no valuation below 1.2cpp should be allowed by the algorithm.

[Shadowfactor]

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@Anonymous wrote:
If they don't fix this extremely basement valuation soon, they might just have killed it's own credit card business.

They really need to put in a floor for this, no valuation below 1.2cpp should be allowed by the algorithm.

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Anytime awards aren’t anything new. I didn’t realize that last night.

[redpat]

It was due to happen.  Airline miles are like chickletts now.  Even w/ Delta 1.2x w/ MR transfer getting miles from ebates, dining, amex offers, Rocketmiles  and business spend on top of flights there are is a sea of points/miles out there.

[NRB525]

The devaluation of airline miles is inevitable. I have a AA MileUp card, about 41,000 AA miles, so now but do not fly AA hardly at all. I am not in an AA hub. So I will try to round up these miles to 50,000 and redeem, then close the card. Once my little 1.99% BT is paid off on the closed Citi card in a year, I should be completely out of Citi cards by summer 2020.

[iced]

Agree that these sorts of changes are inevitable. They devalue points because the market can bear it. I also doubt that the valuation is below 1 cpp - even DL is higher than that and it's the original SkyPeso. It's only going to be that bad for people who book the types of routes that dynamic pricing was designed to cut out. Think of this as the airline's version of 5/24 - it culls out those who they see as abusing their reward system.

6 years ago, it was easy to amass 150,000 miles on a few thousand dollars worth of airfare on UA or AA. With static redemption charts and sufficient planning, that turned into a R/T J ticket to almost anywhere in the world. That level of value return wasn't sustainable. UA knew people would complain but would eventually get over themselves as they got used to the new normal. AA will do the same.

Dynamic pricing won't be the end of the world, unless you're the type of person who scrimps up just enough miles (almost entirely from CC spend) to get a couple of Y tickets then try to book them during the peakiest of peak times (flying home for the holidays, for instance) or for premium cabin tickets to high-business destinations (you'd be surprised how many people want to use miles to fly J to BOM, TLV, FRA, NRT, SIN, and HKG) . People who play that game will get burned. For everyone else, they're already doing things that result in the best pricing on dynamic fares so this change will be minimal: booking early, picking off-peak days and months, accepting less-than-ideal routings, etc.

We're several years into UA's devaluation of miles and I'm still having no problems finding R/T international J redemptions for under 150k miles. The only thing I can't do anymore is the RTW trick with layovers because they now code by region and not just origin/destination, but that was something I arguably shouldn't have been able to do in the first place.

[Anonymous]

I think I am out of airline miles business except delta which I fly frequent. I will be all focused on UR/MR/TY/GF for now.

Doug Parker has no imagination nor creativity. He rans the largest airline on the face of the planet and he is always behind others for anything good. All he cares is the cutting expense, nothing else.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
If they don't fix this extremely basement valuation soon, they might just have killed it's own credit card business.

They really need to put in a floor for this, no valuation below 1.2cpp should be allowed by the algorithm.

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I don't see a motivation for the airline to do this!  Presumably there is some case where someone has 60K miles, doesn't want to spend the cash, and is happy to use them even at a poor exchange rate.    We see this all the time with credit card redemptions, people redeeming for less than 1cpp on Amazon or statement credit etc.   In many cases it may just be lack of understanding and innumeracy, but in other cases it may be the best use for them currently.   And if people make poor decisions, the airline isn't going to want to stop them!

[wasCB14]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
If they don't fix this extremely basement valuation soon, they might just have killed it's own credit card business.

They really need to put in a floor for this, no valuation below 1.2cpp should be allowed by the algorithm.

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I don't see a motivation for the airline to do this!  Presumably there is some case where someone has 60K miles, doesn't want to spend the cash, and is happy to use them even at a poor exchange rate.    We see this all the time with credit card redemptions, people redeeming for less than 1cpp on Amazon or statement credit etc.   In many cases it may just be lack of understanding and innumeracy, but in other cases it may be the best use for them currently.   And if people make poor decisions, the airline isn't going to want to stop them!

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If AA has 5 award seats at some inflated award price...and 5 interested people who don't know better, don't care, or don't have better options...there's really no incentive to reduce the price.

Maybe it's the routes I take, but it's been a while since I was on a plane that wasn't completely full. And the last time I was, it was just because of a missed connection. Demand is high and excess supply is very limited.