Until the pandemic, American Airlines was unusually generous with benefits for elite members of its partner airline frequent flyer programs. They used to offer Main Cabin Extra extra legroom seating to all mid-tier (‘sapphire’) frequent flyers of oneworld airlines.
Then in 2020 they eliminated this benefit for members of all of their partner programs, and quickly reinstated it for most of their close partners – like the ones where they are part of revenue-sharing joint ventures (like British Airways, Iberia and Finnair on the one hand, and Japan Airlines on the other) and their other close partners (Alaska, Qatar Airways, and at one point JetBlue).
The notable exception: Qantas Frequent Flyer elite members did not get this access. That was strange! American and Qantas have an antitrust-immunized joint venture across the Pacific. Qantas brings Australians to American’s domestic route network. Yet their members were left out.
That changed this week – although the benefit is limited to Qantas oneworld emeralds (Platinum and Platinum One) members only. Other airline partners that get access to Main Cabin Extra seats do so at the lower oneworld sapphire level.
Here’s the internal American Airlines memo on the change:
American is actually more generous with partner frequent flyers than their major competitors, though. As a SkyTeam Elite Plus member (Air France KLM Flying Blue Gold) I receive complimentary exit row seating on Delta, but not extra legroom Comfort+ seats at booking.
United, meanwhile, does not offer complimentary economy plus to partner elites – even Star Alliance Gold members from Air Canada, Lufthansa, or ANA and other antitrust-immunized joint venture partners.
The idea of these joint ventures is that they are supposed to be “metal neutral.” It isn’t supposed to matter who a passenger flies. Maybe that’s true for the airline, since they’re sharing the revenue either way. But it remains true for the customer, and simple things like extra legroom seating benefits should clearly be harmonized for customers in any joint venture.
Gary that’s not how you use “on one hand and the other”. Your writing needs some work
@Peter — It’s all about that MCE!
@Thomas — I guess I wasn’t fast enough to be here for you to complain about me, so you had to go after Gary. ‘Mediocre.’ (Got anything spicier?)
I suspect that this may have been due to Qantas’s policy of not allowing elites to book exit or bulkhead rows on their flights for free. However, now that they have recently introduced “Economy Plus” seats on some of their fleet, they now allow Qantas Platinum/P1’s and oneWorld Emeralds to select for free at the time of booking.
Therefore, this makes sense – it was all about reciprocity.
There were a few days there in the last week or so where you were doing so well with not (and therefore correctly) using em dashes. You can do better, Gary.
Yet, I pay full J cost on AA with a QF segment and am only allowed to reserve a seat in a portion of the cabin, as I’m not a QF elite.
As others mentioned, I’ve noticed I (AA EXP) can now select Qantas exit row and most “up front” seats, so this seems reciprocal.
On the other hand, checked baggage has gone backwards. In recent years Emeralds (in economy) got 3 bags on either AA or QF – this was harmonised and worked well. Last year QF reduced it to 2 bags while AA remains at 3. Highly annoying that it’s no longer in sync and the allowance varies by operator (even on an AA-coded itinerary).