How & Why American Airlines Has Lost Most Of My Business

a plane with red and blue stripes

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American Airlines has been my primary airline for quite a few years now and the AAdvantage loyalty program was, for a long time, my favourite airline program by a considerable margin….but all that has changed very quickly over the past 18 months.

From the moment the management of US Airways got their hands on American back in December 2013 a lot of AAdvantage loyalists began to fear for the future of the program.

AAdvantage was the world’s first true airline loyalty program and, historically, had been one of the most generous programs out there…but we knew that couldn’t last.

AAdvantage was so much better than the loyalty programs United (MileagePlus) and Delta (SkyMiles) offered so we knew that, at some point, there was going to have to be a review of what benefits AAdvantage handed out.

We knew that the new guys in charge at American would wonder why they were being so much more generous than their nearest competitors and that would lead to changes we probably wouldn’t like.

a man in a suit smilingDoug Parker took over at American Airlines following the “merger” with US Airways….it’s been mostly downhill since then

What we didn’t realise at the time was just how bad those changes would be.

We got a stay of sentence for a few years while management was busy working out how to merge two airlines and how to combine two very different IT systems without causing chaos (something they did very well in the end) – they simply didn’t have the time to tinker with AAdvantage.

Unfortunately it wasn’t long after the major targets of the merger had been accomplished that management turned its sights on AAdvantage….and out came the axe.

  • Top tier elites saw their international upgrades cut from 8 to 4 per year
  • A minimum spend criteria was introduced for travelers aspiring to elite status
  • The way the airline calculates how many redeemable miles to award for flights was changed – it’s now based on the cost of the ticket rather than the distance traveled so most flyers earn a lot fewer miles for their flights now.
  • The award charts were made more expensive – in the case of premium awards on aspirational partner airlines (Etihad, Cathay etc…) some awards went up by over 40%.
  • American stopped permitting stopovers on award flights and started forcing flyers to book two awards (at a vastly increased cost) if they want to break up their journey (there is a workaround that helps in a few cases).
  • A new elite level was introduced (Platinum Pro) which hugely devalued the existing the mid-tier AAdvantage level (Platinum)……which just happens to be the tier that most long-term flyers hold as their lifetime status.

a white and grey background

On top of these devaluations (and there were more…I just haven’t listed them all) the airline put through a few more changes that made flying life a bit less pleasant for AAdvantage loyalists:

  • Complimentary domestic upgrades have become a lot harder to get as the airline has reduced prices for travel in the first class cabins in an attempt to monetize the cabin more efficiently (I don’t blame them for doing this…I’m just stating what they did).
  • Domestic and International SAAver awards have gone from being reasonably easy to get (up to around 2011) to harder to get (2011-2014) to almost impossible to get (2014 onwards) – there are numerous reports of American sending out aircraft with empty seats rather than releasing SAAver award space.
  • International upgrades are a lot harder to clear in advance so travelers are often left waiting until the day of departure to see if they’ve got a comfortable seat – that makes planning trips a lot harder if you’re allergic to sitting in economy 🙂

American Airlines Business Class 787-8 DreamlinerGood Business Class seats….but have you tried booking them with miles?

Truthfully, while this has all be death by a thousand cuts for me, the biggest blow has been the inability to use my AAdvantage Miles for award travel on American Airlines aircraft – specifically for travel between the US and Europe.

For the first time I’ve found myself telling Joanna that we’re going to have to get creative in how we book our next family trip (if we want to fly up front) because I have zero confidence that we’ll be able to find Business Class SAAver awards on American….even if I start searching from the day the flights become available (331 days out) and if I set alerts on Expert Flyer.

I understand that the airline had to make changes to AAdvantage because it was simply too generous…..but was there really any need to go this far?

Not only are miles harder to earn but they’re now also a lot harder to spend….and if you can spend what few miles you now earn the awards cost you more than ever before.

So I’ve had enough.

We, as frequent fliers, can moan all day and all night but if we think that this will make any difference to those running AAdvantage and American Airlines we’re being delusional.

The only way to get the message over is to hit the airline in the pocket. Hit them where they may actually notice.

a stack of money on fire

Unfortunately a lot of fliers aren’t in the position to avoid giving American their business (they may be hub captives or their employers may have deals with American)….but I’m not in that position. I can make the choice to limit how much of my money goes to American.

I’m fortunate in that I’m spending a lot more time based in Europe nowadays so I’m not nearly as beholden to American as a lot are….but I’m still not entirely in the clear. I live in a British Airways captive market and British Airways shares revenue with American on all transatlantic flights.

So what am I doing?

Simple. I’m avoiding flights between Europe and the US as much as I can.

If I’m flying in economy I don’t really want to fly airlines with which I have no status (those outside of oneworld) and I don’t want to fly with an airline that will give part of my fare to American (British Airways on transatlantic routes) so I’m flying east instead.

Where in previous years most of my long haul flights have been between the US and Europe (all with either American or an airline that revenue shares with American) almost all my travels this year will be between Europe and Asia/Oceania.

So far I’ve flown to Auckland, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul, I’ll be flying to Sydney later in the year and there will probably be a Bangkok trip thrown in at some point too.a map of the world with red lines

All the flights have been (or will be) on oneworld airlines but not a single cent of those fares is going to American.

I am flying back to LA later this year and, sadly, I’ve had to book that on American as I’d like to use up my Systemwide upgrades…..but that’s the only bit of revenue they’re booked to get from me this year and I’m going to try to keep it that way.

I don’t for one minute think that this will make a blind bit of difference to American…but that’s not why I’m doing it.

Clearly I’m not important to the airline as I’ve never been one of their high-spenders but I refuse to be one of those flyers who complains about how an airline is treating them and then does nothing about it – they’re a bit like the people who complain about politicians and “the state of politics” and then don’t bother to vote.

If you don’t like something then do something about it.

Bottom Line

I was a big fan of American Airlines and AAdvantage up until not that long ago and I was more than happy to recommend them to anyone looking to get value out of their flying….but not any more.  If American had been half-decent in how it approached the devaluation of AAdvantage then I probably wouldn’t have felt like this….but they’ve gone too far.

On the airline side of things they’re rapidly beginning to resemble a low-cost carrier (introduction of Basic Economy fares and seats with just 30” of leg room coming soon) and on the loyalty side they’ve gutted what was once a wonderful program and we now have a situation where AAdvantage miles are almost impossible to use efficiently.

That’s not the sort of airline that deserves my business so I’m going to do my best not to give it to them……now if only the flyers that American actually cares about would follow my lead then perhaps we may see some changes for the better….but I won’t hold my breath on that one.

2 COMMENTS

  1. You are, beyond any doubt, correct on all points. As a EP I was shocked to see Mile Savor biz seats go unfilled on a recent flight. Not to mention my US to Europe Systemwide seat was up for sale for three weeks at least as a ‘J’ bucket 180K offering one way.

    There clearly is remedy in the courts as we all bought into a program with ‘rewards’ and after gaining access to the prize they changed the cost upwards. This is fraud along with ‘bait and switch.’

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