I spoke with Suzanne Rubin, the President of AAdvantage, this morning about the changes that have been announced today.
I think she heard the feedback about the lack of notice in the changes to the award chart, rules and opportunities that were announced today, and that while she wouldn’t promise they’d do things differently it’ll be something they think long and hard on in the future.
Here are some key points from our conversation:
- I emphasized the importance of advance notice of changes to members, as an issue of trust and respect
Suzanne said made four points, the fourth of which is the most important:
- They wanted to be out in front of members with their own communication first, rather than having the information come out early, but with some of the changes they had to make advance filings. (This would relate to baggage fee charges.)
- They felt like they were providing a timing buffer by making changes for tickets effective immediately but only for travel starting June 1.
- Many of the changes that came out today were seen as “harmonization” rather than transformation changes, and to “get up to speed where the industry already is.”
- She seemed a bit surprised by the reaction to the lack of notice, “will take the feedback we’re hearing from the community, feedback of the commentary today, into consideration for future decisions. Ultimately we’ll be doing everything we can to steward the AAdvantage program in the way that customers expect.”
- On the mystery 3rd (high) level of AAnytime awards
They show just an asterisk for how many miles the top level of awards is going to cost. That bothered me.
So I asked about pricing and Suzanne told me that it
remains to be determined, we’re looking at making sure we can appropriately match the award levels with the demand we see on certain days. If you go and think about the prior US Airways Diviend Miles blackout dates, that’s a good first pass at what the days would be, we are actively making sure this isn’t expansive and truly trying to match the demand for the product. Ultimately we need to make sure the value is in line with the revenue opportunity that we have. We’ll have some learning to do on this.
I’m surprised that the asterisk currently represents that they don’t know.. It can’t be good, of course.
- Stopovers on Awards
Suzanne suggested that elimination of stopover was in part driven “from a technical standpoint, while it may not be evident it’s part of making this work together” and also suggested that there was probably too much value relative to pricing (I assume she was referring here to the ‘free one-way’) and that it’s an obscure rule that wasn’t benefiting most members.
- When can we expect to see more news
Reciprocal upgrades for elite members should be the next thing announced — US Airways elites getting upgrades on American and vice-versa.
We have been laser focused on delivering customer benefits of the integration as quickly as possible. We’ve seen the early-on recognition of elite members, entry into oneworld [for US Airways], and notably absent so far is upgrades. We’re working around the clock on upgrades, it’s near and dear to customers, so we’re spending a lot of time, but it’s a complex issue to deliver. It will hopefully be one of next things to announce.
- On Whether US Airways and American Elite Qualifying Mileage Will Get Combined Towards Status
This isn’t a topic of the day but something I’ve seen mixed reporting on, and since they don’t actually know for certain when the programs will get combined they haven’t actually made a decision one way or another about how they are going to combine elite qualifying miles from a member’s US Airways and American accounts to determine elite status in the program going forward yet.
- “Balances in member accounts today cannot be combined to redeem an award on one or the other carrier” (you can’t use some American miles and some US Airways miles towards a single award, and cannot move miles back and forth between the two programs)
- “We haven’t come out with a date to integrate programs”
- “When we do integrate, we will be bringing balances together into a single account structure”
- She then explained that they would probably need to combine elite qualifying balances if the programs were combined during a program year (eg combined in March or September) but not necessarily if there was a clean break into a new program on, say, January 1.
- “Balances in member accounts today cannot be combined to redeem an award on one or the other carrier” (you can’t use some American miles and some US Airways miles towards a single award, and cannot move miles back and forth between the two programs)
American was too generous with their ‘AAnytime’ awards compared to the rest of the industry. We’ve known that and their actions with new routes suggested that they did too. They were also too generous with baggage allowances for bottom-tier elites, that wasn’t going to last especially with an airline management looking for revenue at every turn.
I’m disappointed to see North American gateway stopovers and oneworld explorer awards go away. Both take real value away from frequent flyers even though they were used only by a very small portion of members.
There will be give and take during the integration, and both AAdvantage and Dividend Miles members will have reasons to be unhappy. US Airways elites up front domestically will at least get fed occasionally now.
I appreciated Suzanne’s time this morning. She’s done good work with AAdvantage to date and clearly wants to going forward, and is somewhat constrained in conversation about their plans.
But the biggest issue in all of this is maintaining trust, being transparent, and giving meaningful notice about changes when possible. That’s the message I offered, and it’s what will set the tone for the rest of the changes to come.
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They were surprised by the reaction to their lack of notice? Seriously???
She was surprised that people don’t like lack of notice when they make huge changes?
How long has she been at this?
I am dubious, to say the least.
Thanks for posting this. Her response in regards to a lack of an advanced notice is baffling!
Thanks for making the effort to reach out to her for comments, and for relaying the frustration that many of us feel about the lack of notice.
You should do a detailed report about how the peak days of at least 50,000 miles one way domestically in coach is a total rip off. i have noticed many dates are now at that level. if you do the calculation, many of these redemptions are less than 1 cent in value. why would you not then do an arrival card for 2.2% in value, plus be able to earn miles in a program for extra value? I am going to start using United more, now that I can book anytime coach fares at only 25,000 miles, because I have their credit card. i just can’t believe how out of hand they got with the miles they required; this has to be worse than delta now many times, as i rarely see any low level direct flights anymore.
You didn’t ask about reduced availability of SAAver awards? That’s the elephant in the room in my opinion and which potentially makes this devaluation massive.
As bad as the UA devaluation was, they gave months of notice and worked through questions and are now erring on the customer side with some of the repricing issues for outstanding awards. Sort of have to hand it to them for a little common sense.
Gary – I feel like you let her off the hook here. The sudden disappearance of the free stopover + oneworld explorer awards really hurts.
They could have made these changes effective June 1st and I think most would be content.
I’m filing a DOT complaint here if anyone else wants to (won’t do any good but will go on record).
http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/air-travel-complaint-comment-form
@AdamH Yes I agree – I’m surprised they managed to screw up more than United.
“They wanted to be out in front of members ..”
Q:Is this a tangent, it does not seems to have anything to do with providing or not providing advance notice of changes.
“They felt like they were providing a timing buffer by making changes for tickets effective immediately but only for travel starting June 1.”
Q:Selling a bridge in Brooklyn?
“Many of the changes that came out today were seen as “harmonization” rather than transformation changes”
Q:Presumably customers pick you over others because you’re different, then why would you be surprised when you “align to the industry”?
“She seemed a bit surprised by the reaction to the lack of notice…”
Q:Haven’t you been on discussion boards before? It seems you’re familiar with Mr. Leff who previously railed companies when they provided no notice.
If you accurately reported Ms Rubin’s statements (and I assume you did), I’m afraid they sound like disingenuous corporate-speak to me.
– If they wanted to communicate with their members first, they could have done so prior to implementing the changes — in truth, they still have not communicated with their members AFTER implementing the changes.
-A policy that goes into affect immediately cannot possibly be described as providing “a timing buffer”.
– It beggars belief that they’re surprised by the reaction to the lack of notice, especially from AAdvantage members who may have been saving for an Explorer award for several years, only to have that redemption eliminated without a hint of warning.
“laser focused” is the most over-used term by publicists. Clearly using talking points and not providing real insight. How is no notice “harmonization?”
Gary => I am in agreement with Travel Summary & swag, thanks for reaching out to Suzanne Rubin and sharing highlights from your discussion.
Ditto to Nick…this all means nothing absent info on SAAver availability. Whether it drops off will be the factor that determines whether these modifications are completely game-changing.
“American was too generous with their ‘AAnytime’ awards compared to the rest of the industry…” Maybe the rest of the industry is too stingy? If everyone else is serving up @##$% then AA has to do the same?
Did she used to work for Delta? I guess so!!!! That is where she learned that the objective of an airline is to make customers mad. And she is getting that.
BTW, did you ask why she keeps devaluing Gold status? It used to be a decent status to have but now it is almost worthless. First they took economy comfort, then they took selection of preferred seat, now they reduce the number of free bags. Thus, I am wondering why bother having Gold status with AA.
@AdamH Yep this really makes UA look like a gentleman with class.
I’m not impressed with this once star of the FF community.
I have one 4 letter word for her, but since this is a respectable blog, allow me to say this #Fail and shame on Susan and AA.
‘Many of the changes that came out today were seen as “harmonization” rather than transformation changes, and to “get up to speed where the industry already is.”‘
Translation: Everyone else decided to screw their customers over and we were still providing marginal value, so we decided to screw our customers over in order to keep up with the industry standard. We’re committed to maintain our position at the cutting edge of customer-screwing.
I admire anyone who could maintain composure while someone lobbed that grapefruit at them, much less thank them for the opportunity.
I was going to try and book an explorer award sometime in the near future. Oh well.
I am sorry they weren’t “laser focused” on the benefit most important to this EXP: the free stopover. When this occurs within the outbound and inbound flights of an itinerary, I don’t see its elimination as a cost-effective change for AA. Get rid of the post-travel one-ways if you must, but don’t tread on my stopovers, please. That was a mighty precious AAdvantage to this program.
If the worry w/r/t stopovers was allowing the extra one way on awards (which I understand), then why not just eliminate that part of it? Why not state that stopovers can only be for a max of X days? That problem could have been solved in a much less customer unfriendly way. Now, we cannot spend a day in SFO on our way to HKG, as we have always enjoyed doing.
“They felt like they were providing a timing buffer by making changes for tickets effective immediately but only for travel starting June 1.”
What a crock of ###. How many AF FFers sitting on several hundred thousand miles can make use of them in the 53 days? I’m sure Lucky will be frantically flying around the world in for the next 53 days. But hardly anyone with a job, much less a family, will be able to arrange for time off, and plan a trip, starting in just 53 days.
“She seemed a bit surprised by the reaction to the lack of notice”
This attitude reveals that American does not see loyalty as a two-way street.
Managers of loyalty programs must be able to see things from the customer’s point of view. Otherwise customers will not take the program seriously, because fundamentally the management does not take the program seriously.
Gary – for me, it is the elimination of the Explorer awards that is galling. It is simple bait-and-switch, and we in the community have been too blithely accepting the airlines manhandling us for years. How do we organize?
Thanks for the info, Gary. Your way over-friendly treatment of AA in this post and the last few today is what gets you access to AA execs like this, so I can overlook it as the price for access to the info. If your reaction to AA today was similar to the untimely DL post yesterday, you surely would not get interview opportunities like this.
My observation is this: despite all the DL-bashing by you and others and the discontent of even the most loyal DL customers, over the next year AA will watch DL’s very profitable implementation of their award program changes and will follow suit – or “harmonize” to use Ms. Rubin’s terminology.
The AA program advantages that you promote so loudly are crumbling down around you, and in a year’s time the only difference between AA and DL will be DL’s vastly superior operational ability and their lack of merger chaos and grumbling front-line staff. Enjoy what remains while it lasts!
It may not sound like it, but I’m a huge fan of yours. You’re going to have egg on your face on this one, though, by the time the dust settles.
I quit AA’s program several years ago and have never flown them since.
I think Gary being overly generous to Suzanne Rubin — who comes across like she hasn’t worked in this space very long even though she has — has to do with access. If he’s going to be the blogger getting to make the Day One call to corporate, he can’t totally rake her over the coals. So he’s giving her some leeway she doesn’t really deserve. That said, she has to report to a CEO who may not think frequent flyers deserve notice. So I’d read her “surprise” with a grain of salt and chalk that “surprise” up to taking one for the team. Otherwise, that’s just professionally embarrassing for her.
I think everyone was kind of anticipating some sort of changes from AA. The only thing left is to change officially change the program name to Dis-AAdvantage. Thanks for the harmonization!
Gary, I feel you are not as strong to this women as you are to Delta which is a huge disapoitment. I still very upset about American Airilne’s decision to eliminate One World Explorer. Is there any way the will consider at least to give some mercy period?
“I think she heard the feedback about the lack of notice in the changes to the award chart, rules and opportunities that were announced today, and that while she wouldn’t promise they’d do things differently it’ll be something they think long and hard on in the future.”
what an absolute joke that is… so there is NO promise they will not make stealth devals again.
given that response…
@gary – is AA still a program that you trust????
+1 to jay — Gary, I’m curious whether AA is still a program you trust?
Jon, I disagree. Lucky was very critical of AA in his posts last night and today, and he had a chance to speak with Suzanne as well.
I just checked my email, and the “notice” I was sent from AA is much worse than the lies mentioned above.
“Redeem for less. Effective today for travel starting June 1, 2014, a one‑way AAnytime award now starts as low as 20,000 miles plus applicable taxes and carrier–imposed fees. Plus we’ve lowered the minimum number of miles needed for AAnytime awards to popular destinations like Hawaii, the Caribbean and Europe. Our lowest AAnytime mileage levels are available for more than 50% of the year. Don’t forget we still offer MileSAAver awards that can be redeemed for as low as 12,500 miles each way, plus applicable taxes and carrier-imposed fees.
No blackout dates! Continue to use your miles for any seat on any American Airlines flight using an AAnytime Award. Award levels vary by date and a few select dates throughout the year are now offered at higher mileage levels.”
It makes it sound like they have LOWERED the required miles for Anytime awards. Bull^^^ Perhaps for economy trips to Finland in January, I didn’t check. But I did check for a pair of FC awards ORD to LHR.
Forget “lowered”, not one single day from June 1st thru end of booking is even as low as it was yesterday. It used to be 125K miles for one way FC TATL.
Remember how the new rates aren’t supposed to start until start until June 1st? May 31st jumps from the previous 125K to 175K.
From then on thru the summer, FC awards range from 175K to 215K one way. Once one gets into the winter, some days drop down to “only” 140K. But far from lowering anything, not one single day after May 30th is as low as it was.
I’m not sure what I hate the most; the massive devaluation with zero notice, or blatantly lying to me in the email about it.
@Shannon – I don’t see them going back on the decision unfortunately even for a short time
@Marvin O’Grovel
‘Many of the changes that came out today were seen as “harmonization” rather than transformation changes, and to “get up to speed where the industry already is.”
Read: first we harmonize USAir and AA. Next step is gutting of the award chart. No advance notice I suspect.
Just as AA/US was winning me over from UA 1K this comes along–very sad move and the lack of notice inexcusable.
The salient takeaways are these:
–Rubin is the only carryover high-placed AA exec still in her role with the airline. She is working for Parker and Kirby now and dancing to their tune. Clearly they were not of a mind to give notice, nor were they interested if FFs were put off. Consolidation is a bitch, folks.
–Though the previous management may have wanted AAdvantage to have a superior value proposition, from Rubin’s language, this management wants nothing to do with that idea. That they are hacking away at benefits on an interim basis, before they even merge the programs, is laser-precise evidence of that.
–Again the language about over-rewarding. We’ve heard it from Robertson, Smisek, and now Rubin, albeit in a less off-putting way. For now it’s just the low-hanging fruit, but obviously more is to come. Clearly if the question is whether to retain value sweet-spots as a competitive advantage or devalue, this management will opt to devalue.
No one should be surprised. This is the legacy of consolidation. Competition breeds innovation, unique value propositions, a laser-focus on the competitive advantage. Consolidation breeds using market-size and lack of competition to leave the consumer feeling they are without options as value is destroyed. American is bringing its product up to domestic industry standard as they bring AAdvantage down to that as well. Gary predicted it.
In other news, Putin is SHOCKED that anyone is bothered by him annexing Crimea. SHOCKED!
Suzanne could do PR for Vladimir. They seem to understand each other.
Wondering when the whole mileage thing falls apart? So how does an normal point/mile earner even compete anymore. Are normal ppl ever accumulating 200-300k in their accts for a flight? I cant imagine if someone grinding along putting all spend and shopping online thru the AA portal saving for a big trip might have just been completely screwed. And now we just shrug when miles costs bump from 90k to 110k. Whew it only went up by 22% thats not so bad.
So was this a conference call with several bloggers or an individual conversion? TPG, Ben, and You spoke with her today.
Although Gary appears (disappointingly) to be an AApologist today with his posts, what he doesn’t appreciate yet is that this blog and all the others out there (especially the more snake oil salesmen/women ones) have also become far less valuable.
Agree with everyone else that Suzanne’s explanation for the lack of any notice is pathetic and her surprise is just fake.
Quite simply – as it comes to customer focus/concern – there is zero excuse for not giving anyone advance warning. The only excuses involve increasing revenue and so forth. They could have simply afforded people some notice. People fly on these airlines and accrue miles hoping to use them for something. By the very nature of how these programs work, you cannot get around a time lag between earning the first mile and spending the accumulated miles for an award. Because of this lag, they should certainly give the customer the respect of knowing what is coming. We all understand inflation and costs and revenue and wall street targets, but just a little notice would mean a ton. I guess they don’t understand the customer or just don’t care.
In all, I don’t care about the ins and outs of the changes as much as I care about lack of notice. It is a very abrasive maneuver especially for those who had been planning complex itineraries for family moments/experiences/etc. and now are undone.
I was going to sign up for some credit cards and fly some additional trips for more miles. However, I have decided it is better to become agnostic to brands as a friendship and instead become more alert to which companies I will not do business with.
As far as raging at Gary – it is his blog and he can write and feel what he wants. It doesn’t mean he is a shill or in some dark alleyway. If you are angry, upset, or otherwise – call/email/tweet American and let your voice be heard. If they do nothing about it, then do your best not to fly them. Otherwise, I got a life to live – caio!
Apparently, many bloggers spoke with Suzanne this morning so I doubt much will change since I’m guessing there’s a pretty cozy relationship there.
@David this wasn’t a conference call, seems like she spent some time to talk to who they’d view as key influencers today.
And to others I am presenting her side of the story but also I hope making clear where I feel they came up short.
@gary
Really would like your opinion… given that AA told you that they won’t gaurentee steal devals – is this still a program you trust?
errr i meant *stealth devals
The email I got was all positive and rosy. The quick devaluation of their program really hurts to people like me who have aligned themselves with American in large part due to their frequent flyer plan.
I agree that the summary Gary posted sounds like a broadcast of AA’s lame talking points and less like he actually asked her “why screw your customers so badly and with no warning.”
Rubin’s statement “Ultimately we’ll be doing everything we can to steward the AAdvantage program in the way that customers expect” doesn’t seem to fly counter to what all of us are saying we expect and want. They will do what they want to do. And unfortunately, I would expect a few more program cuts between now and next year (including increasingly less award space at lower levels).
Suzanne Rubin used to be the face of the most customer-focused ff program. Seems she knows who’s signing her paycheck. Color me disappointed. She was not “surprised” at the reax to lack of advance notice. How do I know? Because SR is not stupid.
Gary — Did you ask her about Explorer awards? Once US is completely integrated and there are fewer technical issues, it would be great if Explorer returns. I doubt it, but would like to hear that answer.
Suzanne’s comment about matching the industry is complete BS. Few airlines have 5 tier awards (do any besides DL?). NO ONE has an asterisk price. Other airlines allow stopovers. If people abused stopovers, then put a limit on the length of the stopover and make them require approval by phone. For example, you’re flying NYC-SYD, but a 2-day stopover in LAX is necessary to make the SYD flight. Allow that. Block someone who wants a 4 month stopover in DFW so they can get a free HNL flight.
Not giving advance notice basically means they cannot be trusted at all. They gave no notice because they didn’t want to give us a chance to redeem at the old level. But that failure to give some of their best customers notice to be able to use their miles will hurt them in the long run.