This week American AAdvantage made several changes to its program:
- Rolling out a new three-tier pricing model for AAnytime awards (paying extra miles when regular award seats aren’t available).
- Eliminating free stopovers on international awards at the North American gateway city
- Eliminating distance-based oneworld explorer awards
- Increasing the telephone booking fee from $25 to $35 (they still do not waive this fee for awards that cannot be booked online, and most airline partner awards cannot be).
I saw the changes themselves, overall, as not that big a deal — but the lack of notice about these changes (implemented before communications even went out to members) as being a very big thing indeed.
Of course for members who had been taking advantage of these things, losing them was a big deal and it wasn’t my intention to minimize that — just to point out that for the membership of AAdvantage as a whole these aren’t among more-used features, that there weren’t really any surprises in the changes (changes to double miles awards were very much expected for instance). And there will be many much larger decisions to be made in the near-term that will make some people happy and anger others unavoidably.
No Notice Changes Are the Worst Thing a Program Can Do
The real key, and the best AAdvantage can do, is provide reasonable advance notice about the changes they plan to make.
The worst thing they can do, on the other hand, is what they did — pull the rug out from members who may have spent years saving up miles for a specific award they’ve now not given any last shot for those members to book.
There are going to be many more changes to come as American and US Airways align their policies and procedures over the next year. Most of those are going to be far more significant than the things announced this week.
Members are flying all year this year, giving American and US Airways their loyalty in exchange for promises of benefits in the future. No matter what program terms and conditions say about a legal right to change rules at will, and notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s ruling that consumers have no state law remedy against frequent flyer programs, their is a basic offer and acceptance and moral obligation to deliver on promises which is fundamentally breached when changes are made without meaningful notice.
And members save up for years for those dream trps on the basis of descriptions of what’s possible.
Devaluations without notice are the last refuge of scoundrels and banana republics.
Members Are Up in Arms
Reading the comments to various posts here, both my original discussion of the changes and my subsequent interview with AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin, you’d think I was at best something like Marshal Pétain in the second World War.
This was either because I did not come across as sufficiently critical in the interview (my goal was to share what they had to say on serious issues, and let readers judge for themselves, and judging from the comments I think I accomplished that) or because I appeared to downplay the substance of the changes.
I know they are a big deal to the people taking advantage of these features. Many readers, for instance, loved the allowable stopover in North America on an international award. But it’s precisely how beneficial (and costly) it was with benefits focused on the relatively few people who knew about it and were proactive enough to take advantage of it that it likely made sense to American in their top-to-bottom review and comparison with Dividend Miles to eliminate going forward. I don’t love it, but it doesn’t surprise.
I’d rather they kept the benefit, but it’s small fish compared to what’s to come.
I think the biggest reaction by members was really a fear of the future — if they did this, and they did it without notice, what’s next? And how can I trust them to steward the miles I’ve accumulated and the loyalty that’s resulted in my elite status?
My Framework for What to Expect at American Going Forward
I think that, on the whole, soft things like loyalty and product differentiation are going to matter less at American Airlines as a whole in the future, and this has nothing to do with stewardship over the AAdvantage program. It’s what I expect for inflight product, and for service standards. It’s about mission and focus and the message from the top. I think the DNA that came over from Arizona believes that frills are boondoggles.
Scott Kirby is a numbers and spreadsheet guy, and if you can’t quantify it and show a revenue stream attached to it you’re going to be hard pressed to make an investment.
The airline industry needs this, or at least it has needed this, given the sheer magnitude of malinvestment that had taken place. But you have take it too far, especially if you’ve misspecified the models it’s possible that they’ll lead you to bad business decisions.
Clearing out bad investments that’s the place in the life cycle of a business where it’s worth erring in that direction. But having done the heavy lifting already in that direction I’m not sure if it’s the right position to be taking — not just for customers, but for the business as a whole.
Scott is a sharp guy, and I trust he knows he grabbed the low hanging fruit at US Airways and that the bankruptcy already grabbed a lot of it for American, and that a different tact may be best strategically going forward.
But I do expect a natural skepticism from US Airways American leadership that customer investment is warranted, in terms of winning incremental business.
But I Still Trust the AAdvantage Program
I don’t love the changes to the program that have been announced so far. But they aren’t surprises and they aren’t nearly as significant as the decisions about the program that are still to come — about the overall award chart, unlimited domestic upgrades, international upgrade certificates, and so on down the line.
I think and hope that the strong consumer reaction to lack of notice of these changes will be a lesson learned.
For me they get one screw-up.
How they behave next time — advance notice of changes and clear, transparent communication about those changes — will factor much more into my own opinion about the trustworthiness of the program than this one-off incident.
I’ve always thought that about the worst thing a program can do is pull the rug out from under customers when making changes. And when I’ve seriously and immediately called out programs in the past it’s generally been of programs I already didn’t have much trust in.
Here I think there’s warranted criticism for how this was rolled out. American AAdvantage still has my trust, but I’m wary, and future decisions over the next months are going to be key.
They’re at a turning point. Certainly they know it. And we’ll all be watching.
But I still trust them, and whether I continue to do so will be dependent upon the next data point.
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How many time do you let your wife cheat on you before you don’t trust her any more? No trust left here.
I don’t trust AA now. It even seems to be a given that they won’t make up for their mistakes (by giving back to us at least a grace period for some of these bookings we have been saving up for that are now suddenly out of reach.) And it seems to be a given that they won’t even apologize for the lack of notice or phase-out period of the old awards.
I think it would be naive and foolish on my part to continue to trust AA after what happened this week. Can they earn my trust back? Yes I suppose so, but it’s going to take a lot of effort on their part to show me that they won’t behave in such a fashion ever again.
In other words: “Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me three times, shame on me!”
Gary, I may be missing exactly how a Gateway stopover costs AA anything. In fact it could save them money by positioning the passenger at the ocnnection point in advance so there’s no chance of a missed connection requiring hotel, etc.
Now granted some of us took aadvantage of this when we found that we could fly backwards cross-country months ahead to a gateway, then fly halfway around the world, and if we started the trip before May 15 even get the Off-Peak 20,000 mile fare to Europe in July! But as the rate desk supervisor told me when I ticketed this awhile back, “If they didn’t want you to do it they could easily block it in the website.” And I would have been just as happy to stop enroute which would cost no extra fuel and possibly save them money.
Please enlighten us as to why they would want to deny us the right to stay over, when most of us would not do so and pay for it were it not a perk. If it doesn’t cost money, then its just mean to take it away. I think you can’t overlook that some of these green eyeshade guys are mean at heart. Look at the GOP. Thanks.
The impending breakup of AA/US frequent flyers will be just like the UA breakup 2 years and 1 month ago. I had a 25 year long relationship with UA. Once they ‘cheated’ on me, there was no reason to go back. The same goes for AA/US fliers.
The airlines only cared about us (blog/travel board readers) when it was in their best interest. This is not the case anymore. They have told us to go f*** ourselves.
As Rick would say, the game has changed, and is changing. Programs are morphing out of the good old days.
Gary, even Brian (TPG) walked away from his much loved Delta. Give me your hand and we’ll walk away from the dAArk side. It’s time.
One screw up? They not a five year old but a multinational corporation that made a calculated move with contempt for their loyal customers. No trust left.
I’m confused about the new rules as I haven’t had time to read up on everything. If taking an international trip to Asia, can you still spend the night in Hong Kong for less than 24 hours to break up the trip?
On an unrelated note, how do I find valid open jaw transatlantic tickets on aa.com? Many of them change fare codes when you try to book them and thus the price. And then you can’t book them. Why show me a ticket that I can’t book (very frequent when you use the multicity search function)?
Yes, I want to use real money to buy a ticket, but I want it to be upgradable.
I’m not getting why you would trust AA or other any frequent flyer program. FF programs are clearly on their way out as a significant way to defray travel expenses. The effects of industry consolidation on how many freebies customer get was utterly predictable. Also, after sleeping on it, I realized why AA probably saw no value to giving advance warning. If you give advance warning, you give consumers and media two opportunities to complain. If you don’t, you just go through one media firestorm. Clearly, nobody’s going to quit flying AA over this so I don’t see why they would care about our witching as long as they succeed in chasing away the freebie seekers.
DL and UA hard product are both better out of SFO than AA could ever hope to be……..and now that they are aspiring to SkyPeso with their new American Penny program they will drop like a rock…….you’ll think you died and went to US Scareways hell in just a few months…….
@jen – yes
peachfront: Nobody’s going to stop flying AA because of this? Sorry, wrong.
The 3 majors and WN have screwed us recently, with more clearly to come. Hereafter, I fly by price and schedule. No more worrying about status.
Done with these jacklegs.
Considering how poor their communication has been with their members has been post changes, that’s a huge second strike in my book. The email they sent didn’t mention the majority of the changes. Not honest or open
Say what you want about united – they were upfront and gave ample notice on their changes.
And if you believe that they were honestly “shocked” at the uproar, then I have a bridge to sell you
I guess I’ll be the lone voice in the comments and say I 100% agree with you, Gary. I’m giving AA one more chance. I’m still flying them, but like you, I don’t accumulate miles from credit card spend at AA. I put the miles in SPG and transfer if needed. I’ll not transfer to AA if they f’up again. I’m still a loyal AA flyer, but no longer an AApologist. Come on, AA, don’t f’up again.
No, I don’t trust AA. I was one week out from booking a north Asia route using my US miles. I was waiting til my return date came available in 2015. And no advance notice? Shame on them. Trust, once broken, is lost.
The only meaningful apology is a reversal of the policy with change notice similar to what UA and WN provided for their recent devaluations.
If a house guest steals $20 from your wallet you can forgive and forget AFTER he gives you back the $20. No retraction from AA = no trust or sympathy from me. Just AAversion.
Gary, though I normally respect you and appreciate your judgement and point of view, I ask you to pass a message on to your dear friend Ms. Rubin:
These surprises are a slap in the face, plain and simple, that there are real consequences for John Q. Flyer, and John’s family.
American had a choice, and chose to blindside that family of four who had saved and planned for a dream trip to Europe. A chance to see what life is like in front of the curtain, what goes on behind the frosted glass door, what it’s like to get off the plane before the cleaners are up to row 15, and what it’s like to choose a drink during boarding.
Now the choice is stark: chop four days off of the vacation and fly coach, or don’t fly at all.
The new American, “Where we take AAdvantage of your trust!”
@Carol, US Airways has never given advance notice of changes in the past. Recall that the January 2010 award chart we’ve been working under the past four years was simply changed overnight. It was originally a crooked scanned .pdf even, really rushed online in a slipshod manner. Business class to Europe was 80k before that change.
(Warning, internet grammar police post) When you say “different tact” what you mean is “different tack” (a sailing term).
I agree with the substance. Let us remember that while the name of the post-merger airline remains American Airlines, the actual airline that continues to operate after the merger is US Air.
Gary has gone from credible and informative to being a mouth piece and PR source for the industry.
it doesn’t matter what they do, Gary finds a way to gloss it over. every media interview he does comes across as endorsing the offending company, to which he will blame editing (hint: that editing is on YOU. you want the free publicity for your blog, so you give the media outlet free reign with quotes). i have been quoted both in print and video before. in ALL CASES, i was given sign off authority as to how my quotes were used so i was not surprised by context changes thru editing.
you’ve been at this a long time, Gary. you’re not some babe getting your quotes manipulated. that’s just your spin to your readers to deflect responsibility.
the integrity of this blog is such that there is no longer a reason to read it.
It’s a pretty strange world I think when I lead with all of the changes and call them all negative, say that my basic framework is to assume that the airline is going to get worse from a consumer perspective, say that the WORST thing they can do is changes without notice.. and then conclude by saying that they get ONE more chance in my book..
.. and am called an industry mouth piece.
@abby Has anyone’s words in the mainstream press been harsher than mine on these no-notice changes?
Regarding this?
>>Increasing the telephone booking fee from $25 to $35 (they still do not waive this fee for awards that cannot be booked online, and most airline partner awards cannot be).
Do you mean for international travel only? That’s the only $35 fee I see on aa.com. Can you show your source? Thanks.
@Jerry – tickets issued by AA travel centers are now $35 unless it’s for an Executive Platinum
http://www.aa.com/i18n/utility/aacom_services_charges.jsp?anchorEvent=false&from=footer#ticketing
Lack of notice is appalling, but it becomes sleazy when combined with the fact that they offered a miles-purchase bonus (presumably to entice people to buy miles) in the days immediately preceding the unannounced devaluation. I respect their legal right to change the program on whim, but acting legally and acting in good faith are not synonymous.
Gary – love your blog but disagree with you here. Now AA has to regain my trust. Already wrote to Customer Relations, tweeted, and reached out to my sales contact who was totally unaware of the changes himself.
Completely disagree with you, Gary, and agree with JD. A massive corporation like AA made a conscious decision to make changes with no advanced notice. They did it once, they will do it again. If it takes more than one time for you to learn, it is 100% your mistake.
I think AA would regain my trust if they said oops we should have given notice of these changes and delay changes by a month or so.
Because the PAYCHECK comes form them (no shame or self-respect).
Next time you talk to AA you may wish to point this out to them: The next time the economy tanks (and it most certainly will) and they need our $s to keep afloat we’ll remember this. How they treat us when times are good plays heavily in our decision making when times are bad and everyone wants our business. This was a major, major screw up on AA’s part and, the funny thing is, they have no idea just how hard this will come back to bite them in the *** down the line.
@ff_lover are you referring to me? I get no paycheck from American, or for encouraging folks to get the Citi Executive card… no matter what you think of this week’s news, 100k miles after $10k spend within 3 months and a $200 statement credit remains an awesome deal. (You wind up with 110k miles which is enough for roundtrip business class between US and Southeast Asia on Cathay Pacific for instance.)
And let me be clear about what I’m trying to do here, in my own small way.
The changes they’ve made, they’ve already made. They’re not going to undo those.
They’ve already made those changes without notice. What I really want is for them not to do it again.
Making my bright line something they’ve already done is useless. I am hopeful the heat they’ve gotten can be channeled productively so that we wind up with better action in the future.
It may not work but it’ll work better than saying trust is dead it doesn’t matter what they do in the future.
I’m with nsx here. A reversal of the policy with a reasonable notice of impending change is the only way I’ll be able to trust them AAgain.
In the meantime, this EXP–who’s been with AAdvantage since 1982–has made four bookings with UA over the past two days. Loyalty ain’t a one-way street.
Gary, I agree with #14 Tom that you’re getting raked over the coals a bit. But you and Tom are clearly wrong regarding trust, and it’s by your own words. Many times you’ve written that points/miles are simply a form of currency, which continually devalues; and you’re spot on. By logic then, if a government devalues its currency (even if minimally), should people and markets still have trust? Human history shows the answer to that question is 100% NO.
The change in game here is a big emotional loss of aspirational trips and feeling smarter than most folks (e.g., NoAm Stopovers, Off Peak pricing, etc.), which have been eloquent components of your blog at least while I’ve been reading it since 2009. If the airlines’ race is toward revenue-based rebate programs (e.g., WN, DL), then there is no basis for loyalty, trust, or any other emotional reaction, just as a normal person wouldn’t have emotions for Dollars vs. Euros vs. Yen.
The challenge then is to keep finding programs with value beyond rebate (e.g., LifeMiles, ANA, MileagePlan). I highly value your opinions/guidance on that challenge. Otherwise, as other commenters have said, it’s simply better to find the best cash back card for daily spend.
Perhaps you are confusing your travel planning of your award service clients, with those of your readers. Not everyone can plan trips months in advance. The value of “Anytime” awards was a unique “AAdvantage” for many on close-in bookings.
Now “Sky Pesos” are worth the same to me as “DougVantage” miles, & we know how much you value “Sky Pesos”.
I don’t think that I can agree with you when you say that you still trust them because this may be a one off. I think that you are confused about who you are dealing with. While Ms Rubin is from AA, all of the people who make the decisions are from USAirways. I think that you have to adjust your thinking and realize that this is not a one off and it is not AA. This is USAir and this is just the latest in a long line of decisions showing their disregard for their customers. I was very harsh in my comments after the first post, accusing you of at least appearing to be in AA’s pocket, but I don’t think that is the issue. I think that you have been so enamored with AA for so long that you don’t even realize that the AA you knew and loved doesn’t exist anymore and these decisions are going to continue because we are dealing with USair, who has always done this.
The term trust is not something I have ever felt with these programs. Hotels and air included. I expect rate changes, point changes etc. I expect more of this in the future. Why don’t those unhappy about these changes flood their facebook page and twitter. If enough people bother they wont be happy to see all those negative comments.
Sorry but I’m starting to agree with Abby. The statements made so far have me wonder if even had a little inside knowledge of these changes. Coming out to say the changes are no big deal is a little ridiculous. Eliminating 2 award categories and quadrupling the price of some awards IS a big deal. There is no way to argue it is not. Even DL now beats AA on many awards I’ve checked so far. Please give me a break. Finally some of this is completely at odds with what Parker has told us so far, and with what he said to the DOJ. Why would anyone trust such a liar?
We should have a pool on when systemwides and domestic upgrades will get whacked. Any thoughts?
Gary, Gary, Gary… Now that you have gotten national attention your objectivity has gone out the window. Next time Ms. Rubin calls you, you can tell her that your fees have doubled. Let’s hope AA does not ever turn on you!
Well gary – as you sorta said it before, last out, please turn off the lights.
Hope Suzanne showed you where the lights were!!
I read through your post. You know what happened was done incorrectly, and you know it’s going to get worse. But you still trust them. Really? It is not a fear of the unknown. It is a downright certainty what the new american leadership is going to do to the once respected American Airlines of old. I trust them to totally nickel and dime me to death for fees, give terrible customer service, offer a terrible hard product and offer me a coach seat for 50,00 miles one way. And you could rest assured that likely your flight will arrive late and your bags will not arrive with you. American has been just about my only airline since 2000 but I am done with american airlines. Gary you need to wake up. American is the new Delta!
Gary, love your blog and don’t feel you are a mouthpiece. I wonder what will happen once the big evaluation occurs? Certainly there is going to be one: especially with US/ AA selling miles so cheap. I sure hope they give us notice when they do Devalue, which I think is what you’re aiming for, no?
Love your blog but let me try to summarize your long-winded convoluted post.
“Here’s Why I Still Trust AAdvantage. They’ve only screwed up once.”
@Silver Springer,
I remember writing that we hoped UA would say We’ve heard from our best customers… but we never heard from United. And we won’t hear from AA/US either.
“It may not work but it’ll work better than saying trust is dead it doesn’t matter what they do in the future.”
I disagree. If you attentuate your criticism this time, AA will expect the same treatment next time, no matter what warnings you gave. And they will do this AAgain and AAgain.
The best strategy is to make the loudest possible noise now, so that they remember it next time. Given the purportedly light use of the devalued features, we even have a shot at a short-term reprieve which would indeed win back most of AA’s lost credibility. You shouldn’t give up so easily on that.
But, hey, you’re the one who talks to these folks regularly. I’m just a customer who insists on being treated fairly. That and $3 will get me a Starbucks coffee these days.
People think that USdbaAA is going to jack up their AAnytime awards 2x and let there still be SAAvers? Ha! Maybe they’ll give us a little while to wean us off while they cut SAAver availability down to a trickle. Then one day we’ll wake up and they’ll have hacked off the SAAver part of the chart. There will just be AAwards – 1, 2, and 3. It’s clear that this is where this is leading. Only question is how long. And they haven’t even touched the partner awards either. Until they do – good luck being one of the tens of thousands of AAdvantage members trying to grab one of the 2 seats some partner opens up on its two flights a day to wherever. No way you’re getting out of the US on a SAAver award with AA metal – they’ve locked that inventory down to nothing.
You have never gave any other program another chance. Read the comments, and still think your right? I’m sure you.
@Gary: First, you quotes in the mainstream press, which are the ones that really matter because they set the tone for the mainstream article or report, are always very softball.
2nd: When your article title and conclusion is that you still trust AA, that pretty much says it all. The truth is, even reading between YOUR lines, that we CANNOT trust AA. As you say: US Air never gave notice. Now, we have seen that S.R. is on the US Air team and BOOM- no notice. Ergo, going forward, will we have any notice? NO!
You know this- you even say it. Thus, your advice, one would think, would be, “DO NOT TRUST AA EVER AGAIN”, and burn what you’ve got before the value is cut in 1/2 or by 2/3 overnight. because that is what they will do.
So… tell me, given that fact and that you note that fact, what exactly do you trust? the only answer i can think of is that you can trust them to f— those stupid enough to hold their miles in the dark of night with no warning. And, that even already ticketed awards will not be grandfathered (think gateway stopovers on existing awards which now cannot have any date change- killed in the dark of night by ‘trustworthy’ AA).
As bad as the UAL (or Hilton) devaluations were, they gave people ample opportunity to burn miles at the rate they expected when they earned them. I trust that when they devalue again, we will get notice again. Anyone who now expects AA will give us notice of anything is a fool. I don’t think you’re a fool Gary. So your message to your readers should be genuine. something ‘I still trust American’ doesn’t exactly scream…
Everyone has given their 2cents but the question is, what are we going to do about it？ Is this group really big enough to hurt AA on their wallet？ if not AA will just continue to ignore your 2cents and we can continue gripping until we are blue. It is all about dollar and cents and if we can hit their bottomline then we can all spend all our AAdvantage and enjoy it while they are soaking. Cant wait to see that day.
@abby you do have ample opportunity to burn all your AA miles given what you expect since the AA saver/partner award chart has not yet changed at all!
“But I Still Trust the AAdvantage Program
I don’t love the changes to the program that have been announced so far. But they aren’t surprises and they aren’t nearly as significant as the decisions about the program that are still to come — about the overall award chart, unlimited domestic upgrades, international upgrade certificates, and so on down the line.”
You seems to be going out of your way to say that you trust them. But you are justifying that because you except more changes(devaluations)?
@Michael – bingo
@Orlijr- $0 x2 = $0
American owes an extreme AApology for these changes to Aadvantage without any notice, especially for their elites. I had mulled switching from UA to AA, and I am glad that I did not do so.
It seems that all the US based airlines and frequent flyer programs are on a race to the bottom with the industry leading moves and changes being promulgated by Delta. This actually shows the US airlines have become a grand three oligopoly. Their premium product cabins and service do not hold a candle in comparison to the likes of LH-LX, CX, AF, EK, VS,and SQ.
Why bother with loyalty, when the US based big three are now based upon on a transaction and devaluation business model?
Sorry, I see no reason to trust them. I trusted them before and got burned. I do not know what they’ll do the next time, but I’m going to operate on the assumption the “New American” functions in contempt for its customers. No I will not stop flying the airline when it makes sense for me in terms of price and schedule. No I will not seek out American options over others, ever again. I will continue to try to get whatever value I can out of my AAdvantage miles, but on the assumption that the program will not have enough value in a few months to justify my paying an annual fee for a keeping my credit card.
I for one don’t trust AA anymore – or rather, USdbaAA.
I think it is really telling that Ms Rubin did not specifically promise to give advance notice for future changes, despite all the negative feedback. “Taking it into consideration” to me sounds as though there are additional planned no-notice changes. And I bet international C/F partner awards are the next on this list.
If you have any planned partner award travel over the next 12 months, I would book it sooner rather than later. Plus, AA allows free date changes on awards even if you have no status (if the routing stays the same so the ticket doesn’t need to be re-issued). I guess AA can always renege on this in the future, but changing the rules once ticketed might constitute a “post-purchase price increase” that is prohibited by the DOT.
If you are EXP with free award cancellations and a large mileage balance, you can book a bunch of different tickets – maybe even one every couple of weeks so you can keep extending the validity date of the ticket.
@Gary: and i will. but given that i spend a LOT of time constructing an explorer award spanning many months that is now gone, all my plans are messed up. i already have hotels 70% booked and now, without explorer, the same trip is 2x the miles that i don’t have.
do i still trust American take-aadvantage?
Never book hotels without having either a ticket or a reservation on hold you know for sure you will not forget to complete.
Before I would consider this concrete but they may take away Holds without notice, so better have a ticket.
You are and will always be an unlikable individual, whether it be in person at Frequent Flyer Universities or on the internet.
It’s very gratifying to see so many people finally speaking up about how much of a crap person you are and these and your most recent posts about these severely inconsiderate sequence of events and your mis-timed and oddly measured false rage is exactly why all these people who disagree with you and/or dislike you are correct in doing so.
Do not back pedal, do not summon false anger, do not point out mere grammatical errors or mis spellings in order to reduce a person’s voice, for none of these things will save you.
Your unfounded arrogance should not and will not be tolerated any longer.
PR stunt -no more using this site for cc apps
see post #52 vs Title of Blog entry.
The entire level 3 AAnytime awards can’t even be priced but are starred on their award chart as “will require higher number of miles to redeem”, and you think they can be trusted?
They can’t even respond properly to legitimate complaints about the bait-and-switch removal of OW Explorer awards
http://boardingarea.com/onemileatatime/2014/04/10/customer-relations-adds-insult-injury/
If this REALLY was AA one might understand a trust argument. But moves like this clearly show it’s a Doug Parker operation. I would venture to guess that Ms. Rubin went along with this kicking and screaming internally, but for the sake of self-preservation had no choice but to externally make the best of it. The trust is gone as far as I’m concerned – hard to believe a rational person like you still does. UnbelieveAAble.
@Greg. that would be backwards. hotels were booked @ pre-devaluation prices. planning several months on the road requires knowing where you can stay FIRST. the price of hotels at award vs paid can be 5x up to 10x. everything was open for an explorer award, i was just firming the last details when AA dropped explorer overnight. something, frankly, i never thought a company would do in 2014.
i didn’t factor a zombie apocalypse into my plans either. of course, going forward, one cannot plan anything with regards to AA beyond today. if you can’t count on anything, the miles lose their value vs other more predictable miles/currencies. this is what US Air mgmt doesn’t get.
Gary.-Please explain how it costs AA anything for me to connect to Europe after a 3 day stop at a gateway compared to not stopping at all. I agree that the free one ways had to be addressed but that is not my question.
“I still trust AA because I need you to use my referral links to sign up for their credit cards”
I’m not arbitrarily looking for replies, but I’d like to know if ANYONE as made a concerted effort to comtact rubin and the other jagoffs? I’m going to presume that not one person did this. If you’ve bought tickets on OAL’s since this happened? If so, have you scanned (less payment details) tickets and included in an email to them?
I mentioned yesterday I have a client who chose to tell RUBIN to f-off (he’s an EXP with 3.5+ million miles). How’d he do ît? Instead of buying 3tkts @ AA’s $53k, he purchased the same 3tkts but on one of their direct, head-to-head competitor for $83k. They wanted to use explorer awards for a last minute far flung business trip and AA said “so sorry, they don’t exist anymore but we have seats available to purchas”. He’s sending copies of tickets to RUBIN and KIRBY upon their return with a letter that’ll basically say “Dear AA, Suzanne and Scott: F-you. I know him and he’ll have no compunction to do that. He’s sending it to RUBIN, the numbers guy Kirby and Doug. Can’t wait to see what their response (if any since they’re jagoffs) will be. Oh that’s right, they’ll probably reply with “sorry the baggage policy has changed” like I read somewhere else.
Suzanne.rubin@aa.com
Scott.kirby@aa.com
This is a trip he a d two other exec’s make 5-6 times yearly with unfortunately for them, little advance notice – so award travel is a little inconvenient. Nice to have that kind of change to spend I guess.
GARRY YOU ARE WRONG!!EXPECTED MORE FROM YOU !!
they can make mistake, but they can also make up for it if they really want. Didn’t United extend period for old award pricing?AA totally could have given a grace period after they found out the ,”unexpected” negative reaction.
“Thank you for putting your trust in us and continuing to be a DisAAdvantage(d) member.”
AA and the rest of the airlines have showed that there is no other way to go forward except as a free agent, especially if you are burning corporate account money for your tickets. It just does not make sense to earn miles anymore and dream of a family trip. Its just not worth the usual hassle.
You so wrong and pandering to AA, total devaluation, already milesaver economy to my annual trips to Maui and Key West are rare or nonexistent , respectively. The new Delta. Less need to follow blogs. And your promotion of buying USAir miles during current special way off base now as buying peso AA miles.
@Michelle – I angered you a couple of months ago when you posted as “Walter” and “Lindsay” about my Sheraton Macau room service coffee experience. Then you called me a jerk as “Scott” and insulted me as “Devin” and then as “Bruce.”
I wish I knew what it was that I did to set you off this way, what you think it is that makes me so unlikable especially in person?
Well, I think 2 things are going to happen in the future. First, AA will probably provide some “notice” the next time they change the rules. They’d be foolish not to, and they tend not be foolish. Second, I think a lot more frills and benefits are going to disappear.
Why?
Because frequent flyer programs do not exist to increase the happiness of their customers. They exist to make money. JP Morgan’s Jamie Baker (probably the premier airline analyst) said Delta’s move to a revenue-based program will add an extra $150 million/year to the bottom line. He thinks AA can make even more, and will make the move soon.
I agree. Parker and Kirby will see this as a business decision. If they can make more money by running a stingier frequent flyer program, they will. And isn’t it their obligation to shareholders to do so? If another marketing program will make more money for the company, that’s the program they will adopt. And, as businessmen, that’s the program they SHOULD adopt.
Forget complaining to Gary – he is so far down the pockets of AA brass that you’d have a better chance extracting MH370’s black boxes from the bottom of the Indian Ocean than you would him from their trousers. The only way to hit back at these airlines and the lack of power we have as consumers in face of their increased consolidation is to raise hell with our congress for increased penalties and compensation for late flights, lost bags, etc.
I’ve said elsewhere I’m still planning to finish my mid level chase with AA this year. Only because I have 42k planned already and it is still close enough to get than starting at zero elsewhere now.
But my loyalty to AA is gone. I’m reevaluating. I’m listening, learning, deciding what works best for me.
I still believe Delta has the best on board service of the majors and AA was the best of both worlds and UA was pure garbage. My UA opinion has’t changed, but AA no longer has a loyalty program any better than DL. At this point I’m looking at next year in a “i’ll pay for what i want” instead of chasing status to get what i want. Things can change between now and then, but that is how i’m being pushed by the disrespectful actions of AA.
I personally think you’re foolish to continue to trust AA Gary, but I realize everyone will evaluate what works best for them. I hope for your sake, it goes better than I think it will.
@Ct #67, I wrote Suzanne Rubin and CC’ed Doug Parker and Customer.Relations@aa.com with my disgust of no advanced notice and the ridiculous email they sent out touting positive changes. Told them if they want to win back loyalty from their best customers like us Million Milers, they need to reinstate the One World Award an issue an official apology for making changes without advanced notice and promise not to do so again. No reply yet.
EVERYONE – PLEEEEASE be sure you email these people and customer relations about all of this. I don’t trust AA anymore and I seriously doubt they will end up backpedaling enough to regain my trust, but between the wife and I we still have close to one million miles to burn (yes free vacation days are an issue right now because we are burning a million UA miles from deval, ugh…). At least email your complaints to try and help others like us that need to use these up and get the point across to AA that they CANNOT make further changes unannounced. Thank you!
Also, we all need to hit them hard on Facebook & Twitter as well. Just go look at the things I’ve posted and replied to other people’s complaints about.
@Curtis,
The aa people in charge of Twitter and Facebook are so low down the ladder that it really doesn’t matter. Even if they tell higher ups about the general tone of the posting, we both know that aa couldn’t care less.
The ‘rantings’ here on Gary’s blog are much higher quality. 😉
@dhammer53, True, they are pretty far down the ladder, however at least it exposes more “average” AA people to what has happened that may not have even noticed thanks to such a “positive” email that AA sent about the changes.
Anyone who trusts ANY of these loyalty programs these days is naive at best and deluded at worst. I suppose shills would be excluded from this statement.
I think it’s naive to attempt ‘advocacy’ by either throwing a tantrum OR ‘giving them one more chance.’
The paradigm of frequency programs is shifting. Nothing customers can do will change that.
Help your readers understand how to start preparing now for the future of frequency programs. Help us know when it is time to cash out before it’s too late. Help us understand what the FUTURE of frequency programs will look like so we can shift our habits.
Or don’t.
Everybody gets one screw up…? You mean “one” as in something of this magnitude? Come ooon. At least the other legacies gave notice.
Live long enough to become the villain…
Changes are unavoidable, devals are unavoidable. But a nice heads up to burn whatever miles you were saving, would have gone a really long way. To defend this and say you still “Trust” them? You will lose the readers’ trust. You are getting out of touch.
For all those who say, “I’m done with AA and have booked/will book my next flight(s) with UA/DL/WN” you really aren’t changing anything nor communicating your displeasure to AA. You’re simply moving pork from one side of the pot to the other. You need to choose a different pot.
As consumers, if we even dream to make an impactful change to the behavior of these mega legacy carriers, you have to take your wallet to a smaller carrier. Yes, you lose convenience and perhaps frequency. For those on the East coast – choose B6 to fly more places and perhaps UA/AA/DL only get one or two flights out of you/year. For those on the West Coast: AS or VX. All three of these carriers do transcons, though not to all points and not with as great frequencies.
But please don’t delude yourselves into thinking you’re making a point by shifting your business from one clusterf$%^& of a legacy carrier to another. Nothing will change. I don’t trust UA, DL or AA (or even WN) and am thankful I haven’t had the need to fly any of them over the past 2 years. AS and VX got my business.
@Kelly, Good point.
I recently flew Delta and credited the miles to my Alaska account.
AA/US/UA/DL flyers need to take a close look at foreign partners to see if there’s a (potential) benefit in crediting your domestic miles to the international partner.
@Gary, that’s an idea for a future blog post.
That’s the spirit, @Kelly!!
Big picture, forward-thinking analysis!!!! ^
Do you perchance have a blog I can follow!? 🙂
I think the worst part of your comments on this is the part about “awards you never use anyway”. Over the last year or so, AA has virtually eliminated having more than 1 premium award seat on any flight.
A couple wanting to fly together, much less a family, is now forced to go Anytime. That used to cost 2X the miles, but now it costs 3 to 4 times. You screamed when UA did this for partners, but at least they limited it to partner awards, and gave notice so people had a chance to book with the miles they had already acquired.
AA has now done the same thing, but for it’s own metal, and with no notice.
Due to my wife’s new job, we had to cancel our already award ticketed trip to Europe this summer. We were about to book an economy trip to Cancun for Thanksgiving, since that is the only 4 day weekend she has off for the next year.
Due to work requirements that meant leaving on Thanksgiving Day, and returning on Sunday. Despite being 8 months out, the return is only available Anytime. We decided to swallow the return Anytime rate, since this is the only vacation open to us until Summer 2015.
The Anytime return was previously 35K one way. Now it is pricing at 65K. That’s more miles for economy to Cancun than we spent to go FC TATL last year.
So, no Thanksgiving in Cancun for us. No international trip for over a year. Awards you never use anyway? Bull**** !
@kokonutz: I’m flattered, but no, I don’t have a blog of my own and not sure I’d be great at it. FWIW, I tend to follow Lucky’s One Mile At A Time blog more than Gary’s, but see value in Gary’s. I value a lot of differing opinions, so again, take that FWIW. Indeed, as much as some blame Gary for cheerleading AA on his blog, I could be blamed for doing the same for AS, which I’ve been flying (crediting mileage toward) almost exclusively for the past 26 years, and I’ve been all over the world with those miles.
The evolution of FFP’s, mileage earning/redempton hobbyists and travel bloggers and consumers exploiting every last crevice of these programs, and then consolidation is reminiscent (to me, at least and imperfectly) of Hansel and Gretel. Guess what? All of us as consumers are now tied up in the witch’s house being prepped for dinner. It’s now our turn to outsmart the witch to escape, knowing that house is no longer safe to eat from.
Food for thought (pun intended).
From a pathetic attempt to spin (a rather misleading e-mail from S. Rubin) to teh immediate changes (imagine an AA GLD showing up at an airport with two bags in the morning of the announcement) these changes appear to be a rush decision by an executive rather than a calculated step by the largest airline in the world.
Perhaps, one of the executives (who that could be?) felt an euphoria of a spectacular AA financial performance. When you are at the very top, why should you listen to anyone else? Let’s change the phone fee to $35, raise the award levels, and eliminate an entire class of awards and rules! How harmonizing! I feel even better now and nobody would argue against.
While I do understand why Gary would trust the old AA, the leadership of the AA is now entire new. It is like your wife cheating on you during the honeymoon.
This is why I trust AA even less than DL.
Even if change and devaluation are inevitable, AA has chosen to implement this in an outrageous and disdainful manner. It’s absurd to think that they didn’t fully understand what they were doing and decided they didn’t care if they would upset their members. Then to pour oil on the flames they dissembled and misrepresented the changes.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I don’t see how you can trust them not to do the same thing.
Guaranteed the eVIPs will either disappear or be limited to higher fare categories or require a co-pay.
I don’t even follow Gary all that much, I have so much junk email and tweets and facebook I only see some of it. But what I do follow Gary I really had to do a double take with his take on this. I actually re-read what he wrote to see if it was what I thought he said. But I can see how you can screw up and maybe see the other side, but he seems to only be replying on all the blogs with the same lame type of facts that AA is replying. I haven’t seen him make ONE even half apology to his readers that maybe he missed the mark. ONly quick comeback like AA tweeters and fbookers.
@Gary I can’t believe you responded with this, “you do have ample opportunity to burn all your AA miles given what you expect since the AA saver/partner award chart has not yet changed at all!”
There is absolutely no way AA will keep their saver inventory the same. They will slide them up to the new high levels now that they exist. Why? Maybe you don’t have experience trying to find economy savers with US metal in the past, but they are far and few between, much worse than AA. New management will apply the same to AA.
@Nun highly suggest redeeming predominantly on partners. I’ve written elsewhere that AAdvantage will be subservient to the inventory and revenue management folks but that’s not materially different than the status quo, AAdvantage saver award inventory hasn’t been nearly what it was over the past two years.
I don’t trust AA!!!
I think farnorthtrader put it best: all of the people who make the decisions are from USAirways…. This is USAir and this is just the latest in a long line of decisions showing their disregard for their customers. … the AA you knew and loved doesn’t exist anymore and these decisions are going to continue because we are dealing with USair, who has always done this.”
Very sad for us, and I think harmful for AA in the long run. AA was on their way to being a premier airline. Now it looks like they are going to be a bigger US.