Fresh on the heels of naming a new Chief Customer Officer, American Airlines has named a new head of the AAdvantage frequent flyer program. Scott Long moves over from investor relations to become Senior Vice President of AAdvantage.
According to an announcement by American Airlines Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer Steve Johnson,
With our new exclusive partnership with Citi on the horizon, our cobrand partnership will be more important than ever in helping increase engagement with the AAdvantage® program, drawing more customers to the world’s largest and most valuable travel rewards ecosystem, and driving profitability.
Going forward, both the AAdvantage® program and our cobrand card portfolio will be the responsibility of Scott Long, who I’m delighted to announce will join Commercial as our new Senior Vice President, AAdvantage®. Scott has distinguished himself in several roles across the company – most recently his very successful leadership of Investor Relations.
Scott is the perfect person to lead the continued development of the world’s best travel rewards ecosystem and ensure the successful launch of our innovative card partnership with Citi.
Since the very short tenure of Julie Rath in the role, American Airlines hasn’t had a unified head of the AAdvantage frequent flyer program. They’ve split responsibilities into different teams – one for selling miles (partnerships) and another for running the program experience for members. And there hasn’t been a senior leader for earning, redemption, and elite experience.
As with naming the head of regional airlines and cargo – and previously the Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis – as the new Chief Customer Officer – this seems from the outside a non-traditional pick.
Fifteen years ago Long did spend a year as a Senior Analyst in program strategy at AAdvantage, back when the program was run under Maya Leibman. Since then he’s been in corporate planning, financial analysis and planning, regional airlines and investor relations. Most recently he’s served as Managing Director and then Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development.
The announcement of Scott Long focuses on driving revenue from Citibank, not loyalty marketing or directly on customer engagement. American’s CEO Doug Parker used to refer to AAdvantage as “the card program.” Hopefully Long will come to see the connection between customer engagement through AAdvantage with program success with Citi – that investing in customer efforts drives that success; that without delivering awards and upgrades and benefits there’s far less appetite for the miles that Citi would buy.
I have a vested interest here, of course, rounding my way towards 4 million lifetime elite miles in the program and with several million redeemable miles in my account. Hopefully the program is in good hands.
There’s a lot of work to engage customers, and marketing engine of American Airlines is the perfect place to do it.
- American Airlines charges more for inflight wifi than anybody else. Delta uses wifi to drive loyalty program signups, in order to convert those to credit cards.
- American has better domestic hubs for connecting than anybody else, but doesn’t allow passengers to use that advantage when confirming flight changes or standing by for other flights. Elite – or even all program members – should receive the same confirmed change flexibility that United gives to its flyers.
- Elites, who don’t pay checked bag fees anyway, should be able to through-check bags on separate tickets when traveling with American and its partners (on terms similar to what United offers). A major driver of the restriction was not wanting to split checked bag fees across airlines, but those aren’t at issue here.
- No program benefit is cherished by elites more than upgrades, and by members generally than award tickets. In order for the program to drive ticket sales, and mileage sales to partners, it needs to deliver on promises to customers. That means the head of the program needs to fight – and frequently win – battles with revenue management. The program head must deliver awards and upgrades to customers at reasonable cost.
- They need to be relevant to customers in markets where they want to succeed. And if credit card spend is going to be paramount, they need a strategy in New York, Chicago, and the Bay Area. Scott Long won’t be in a position to drive this, but advocating for including cobrand revenue when calculating the profitability of markets matters. This is something that American finally got under one roof with Vasu Raja.
When American Airlines signed its deal with Citibank and Barclays nearly a decade ago, it pushed more spending onto co-brand credit cards than any other airline. Delta is now number one, and when American Airlines held its Investor Day last year it revealed that it had fallen to number three.
The goals of driving revenue from Citibank and driving value to customers are actually aligned. The problem is that for several years that hasn’t been seen clearly enough at the airline. Long’s job, should he choose to accept it, is to make executives see how these can work together in tandem (and help put passengers onto airplanes in the process, as well).
More window dressing I think.
Upgrade’s are not coming back for mid tier elites, ever. But we can hope that the punishment stops.
Gary’s wisdom wins the Proverb of the Month! I fully agree with his clearly worded and well thought out statement…
No program benefit is cherished by elites more than upgrades, and by members generally than award tickets. In order for the program to drive ticket sales, and mileage sales to partners, it needs to deliver on promises to customers. That means the head of the program needs to fight – and frequently win – battles with revenue management. The program head must deliver awards and upgrades to customers at reasonable cost.
Because of the pandemic and being burned by SkyPesos, I am now a free agent and not chasing elite status. Getting award tickets is my game for the next 2-3 years or more.
“Will American Airlines Flyers Get The Upgrades And Awards They’ve Earned?”
Short answer: No.
Long answer (see Gary’s article): also no.
I like AA… but putting the Abilene hick who has barely left Texas in charge of AAdvantage. Yikes.
“The goals of driving revenue from Citibank and driving value to customers are actually aligned.”
This is a pipedream. DL has shifted to #1, yet has taken SkyPesos and premium services to new lows (despite their insistence otherwise). Without DL moving away from their devaluations and failing service standards, AA are more like to move even further in the opposite direction than Gary insists.
I see the logic in the argument that Gary puts forward. But none of the US airlines see it. Nothing will improve until they do.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to even buy a sandwich onboard. The food for purchase offerings are NOT competitive. This is so basic. I can’t believe the deterioration of American in the last 5 years. I no longer try for EP, it means nothing.
@roundtree — ‘DL.. to new lows.’ Them’s fightin’ words to Mr. Dunn. Watch out!
As I’ve said many times before on here: It depends who are the actual ‘customers’? If it’s passengers, then the airlines and hotels are ‘messing up’ by neglecting their most loyal customers. If ‘shareholders’ are the actual customers, then these greedy companies are doing just fine.
I’m with the majority. It is a lovely wish list Gary, and none of it will happen. At this point, I’d be happy to just get upgrade offers as good as non-elites get. We’re traveling DFW-LHR with another couple. I’m EXP and they have no status. My upgrade offer was for more money than theirs. 🙁
@ Gary — Things may get worse at a slower pace for AA Advantage members, but not better.
Good luck with ever getting upgrades. I am EXP and I have given up on domestic and it is like playing the lottery on international even with systemwide. They will sell paid tickets till the day before and if you wait long enough they will sell. Maybe they will do away with all upgrades and do the bidding option like foreign carriers.
AA has an ‘AAdvantage’ with a commitment to higher value per mile called out by the CEO.
Premium cabin awards with high value per mile optionality by being sophisticated with understanding biz vs leisure travel booking methods is something AA seems to do better than UA/DL *domestically.* Intl needs improvement.
It’s also savvy about not falling ot the trap of no mileage expiration for all members, trying to placate low revenue masses.
This helps subsidize the higher value per mile and hope they are savvy to retaining that feature.
AA miles have more value to me because of it.
Chris white-
Part of the game with upgrades is to give flyers a tease of the good life in the pointy end. When I started flying more I got a few freebie upgrades to business on DFW-LHR flights, and I never went back.
I used to buy f or j just enough to qualify for executive platinum and use miles for the rest of my travels. Then out of the blue I got ck. Now I buy f/j on 100% of my flights and only use miles for family and friends.
This is the exact behaviour aa wants. They have me trained like a dog.
Isn’t the goal of these programs to capture as much value as possible FROM customers?
Step 1: Sell prepaid travel credits of dubious, vague value but making them feel like they’re worth something (35,000 miles or whatever to go to HawaiI!)
Step 2: Once you have already received that revenue, reduce your costs as much as you can on the other side (oh, you want to fly without three connections? That will be 200,000 miles)
Someone with lots of experience in spreadsheeting and finance like Scott Long makes a lot of sense in this role.
@roundtree
DL has proven over and over that for profitability you invest money on the product, not on the frequent flyer program. And UA’s recent improvements follow this rule.
99.8% of people don’t care about the value of SkyMiles vs the value of AAdvantage miles vs the value of United miles, yet when they experience DL (modern cabins with screens, friendly FAs, good tech, etc.) they’re willing to pay much more than what they do for AA (LCC-style cabins with no screens, surly FAs, dated tech, etc.).
I love the “Long’s job, should he choose to accept it” line from Mission:Impossible as an indication of the difficulty of the task.
Like others, I’d love to see AA do what you’re suggesting as being great for both passengers and the airline itself but talk is cheap, whiskey costs money.
They put in a “bean counter” with not much in the way of customer centric experience in charge of the “loyalty program?? Clearly sends the message that AAdvantage is just another credit card revenue enhancement scheme. Good luck getting any upgrades or other customer enhancements.
I love surly flight Attendants,complete crap in the way of dining when I buy First Class,a lack of upgrades as an elite, wildly overpriced award redemption thats shocking and seats that are cramped &uncomfortable that I can hardly fit in.I also appreciate when I am stranded overnight due to mechanical failures told to find a room on my own and hope AA will reimburse me when I complain.Did I mention overcrowded lounges some with mice?
That’s why I fly AA 🙁 I’m into serious abuse
Sad state of affairs
Keep in mind that a year ago AA thought it was a good idea to dismantle the AAdvantage Customer Service department and let every employee go along with all of Cusomter Relations and all of Central Baggage Resolution. Don’t for a minute think that this company really cares about customers more than their bottom line. Slapping some new guy in charge of the loyalty program is lipstick on a pig.
Hey Gary: Great article but what about the other elephant in the room, namely the ability to convert Citi points into AA miles?
All comments spot on…and citibank is the worst rated of all the major banks losing market share year over year. Wrong partner!
Being EP for the past 16 years; I have realize the company doesn’t value its customers in any way. There was a time after the US/AA merger I received a telephone call from the DFW executive office asking if I was satisfied because I had fewer flights booked in the coming months. Fast forward to this past year, I wrote a letter stating EP status is a waste because the best perk for me was systemwide upgrades. The most telling was a form letter stating nonsense, with no recognition. As we all know, they are not available even in advance, and they expire; even after asking for some flexibility.
Now, being retired they lost one of their most loyal customers.
Low cost attitude, high priced tickets, and a mediocre product,