American Airlines overhauls AAdvantage frequent flyer program

Much as the Qantas Frequent Flyer program has a first class earning rate for Australian domestic flights which is never used as there's no first class, AA's program and rewards tables cover the globe so that if/when airlines launch and change routes, the tables don't need to be re-drawn. If Cathay Pacific launched flights from Hong Kong to Mongolia, for example, they would automatically be covered under Asia Region 1.

(As the 'Asia Region 1' rate only applies to three countries whereas Region 2 applies to many more, we simply opted to list all three countries in the article.)

Incorrect. There is no OW presence in ULN.

oops my internent said so; but the airlines website said not so.

Correct – although you can also earn status through EQSs, but that's likely more useful for US-based travellers than those in Australia.

Thank you Chris!

To prepare for this transition, what is AA doing to:

1) Provide visibility in its sales process to provide clarity to customers over the splits of amounts currently known collectively as "taxes and carrier imposed fees", where carrier imposed fees are allowable amounts, while taxes aren't?

2) Compel partner airlines to provide similar clarity over fees and taxes as part of partner airline sales process?

3) Ensure amounts charged my partner airlines are consistent with the amounts used by AA to accrue award mileage to member's accounts?

Update:

In my haste, I neglected to read the fine print.

"Earning award miles for travel on flights marketed by partner airlines will be based on a percentage of the flight distance and the fare class purchased. Exact calculations will be available in the future."

So it seems $ spend requirement is not applicable, which is a huge relief given the items no. 2 and 3 above!

Indeed, the per-dollar rates will be earned on American Airlines, not on partner airlines (unless booked on an AA code).

You know, on the whole I'm not too displeased by these changes.

1) I've sensed the headwinds and transitioned across from EQM to EQP a year ago. If something is too good to be true, it probably is! The new EQM is in fact the old EQP.

2) With the strategy to change from EQM to EQP, I've revised budgets to facilitate J class travel. Therefore reliance on SWU is minimised. So a drop from 8 to 4 is less of an impact.

3) Redemptions for domestic AU and for AU to Asia is not so dramatically impacted being an increase of 5,000 award miles across the board for Asia. AU domestic economy award remains at 10,000 miles and business award has gone up by only 2,500.

4) This is a selfish reason, but with the impact hitting more "core" customers it means rewards are easier to come by. It's also good for AA to be seen to take measures against rampant redemption to protect the integrity of the whole OW redemption market. I suppose collatoral damage is unavoidable.

>>The new EQM is in fact the old EQP.

in fact it's an improved old EQP.  no more 0.5 for cheap tickets, and 2.0x/3.0x for pricier tickets.   hence the down-sizing of SWU allotment, no doubt.

I expect domestic upgrades to disappear from all but very off peak routes/times.   but that's been a long time coming too.  

Yes I believe so.

On partner airlines UK - USA: 30k, 50k, 62.5K (Old) / 30k, 57.5k, 85k (New)

Thanks for that, do we know if they're changing Etihad redemption also? As they're not part of the one world, but an AA partner? Also is this information anywhere? I've had a look but couldn't see it anywhere?

Award redemption for EY flights come under the Partner Redemption framework, which is the same framework for redemptions with OW partners. So in short, EY redemptions are also impacted.

I  think   these   changes   will  mean  quite a sustantial  revenue  loss   For  AA  .  Many  of  us    buy   AA   miles    for   cheap   Biz    and  First   fares   to  Europe  ,  India   and  the   US.It   does   add   up   to a   subtantial    amount   for   the  Airline.  They   will lose all  of  that  , as  Michael  pointed  out,  with   the  Aus    dollar    dropping   the   cost  of a  redemption   ticket on  AA   with    purchased   miles will  be  almost  the   same   as a  revenue  ticket. Not a   smart   move! 

No.  once you issue an award ticket its validity terminates one year later, so that puts a limit on you changing dates.

Even with the changes in the AA frequent flyer program after March, I think that purchasing points is still a pretty good deal.  Under the current deal being offered by AA, points can be purchased for as little as 1.8 US cents each.  A business class return fare from pretty much anywhere in Australia to anywhere in the USA is now 125,000 points which would cost around A$3532 to buy (at A$1= US$0.71);  for bookings after March this jumps to 160,000 points which would cost $4155 to buy, as shown in the table above.  Quite a big jump on current prices but still a lot better than the $7-8K Qantas would charge.  I guess the issue is finding an empty business class seat to be able to book!

Hi Wingflex, the recent issue of false availability showing for Qantas flights is one that other users have also reported to us. Have you tried using the Qantas website to locate a frequent flyer award on your desired flight and then searching that specific date via AAdvantage?

Hi Chris,

I have just done some searches on both AA and QF websites and it seems like AA is showing fake availability on QF flights which are not bookable and are also not shown on QF website. However in some cases some real availabilities shown on the QF website were not given as option to the AA frequent fliers...in general I was very impressed to see that a LHRSYD F Class seat is almost never available on QF fligths throughout the WHOLE year (I have searched until Nov 2016 and could not locate 1 single seat...). Another huge downfall is that when I found a F Class seat available on BA redemption flights the tax amount was over 1000 USD for a return flight ---> Ridicolous! And thankfully the oil is at its lowest levest in the past few years...airlines seems to forget that. This clearly show how devalued are FFP today.