American Airlines changes Advantage miles program

[simpsontruckdriver]

Essentially, if you buy Basic Economy fare, you do not earn miles.

TS

 

[Tia]

someone told us this week with the AA credit card they aren't going to give you the credit now for miles of a flight, haven't found that online so far.

 

[DebBrown]

Eh... all the airline mileage programs are diluted now to the point they are not worth the trouble. Remember when 25k miles got you any round trip flight in the US? Now it's all based on fares.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Essentially, if you buy Basic Economy fare, you do not earn miles.

TS

Yes this was announced a week or two ago. I'm glad I had bought our basic economy tix to Ireland just a couple of days before the announcement. It is becoming less and less desirable to fly these days!

 

[Timeshare Von]

Eh... all the airline mileage programs are diluted now to the point they are not worth the trouble. Remember when 25k miles got you any round trip flight in the US? Now it's all based on fares.

Yes, but I have also been able to book round trip tickets (or 2 1-ways) for under 20k miles on AA. Most recently, 9,500 to Jacksonville Thanksgiving weekend and 8,500 home to Milwaukee from Miami the Sunday prior to Christmas.

I have also been able to save A LOT of money booking AA tickets internationally . . . as compared to paying for them vs. mileage. To Lisbon was 19,000 miles (vs. over $600 1-way) back in October . . . and next October I'm flying home from Tokyo for "just" 37,000 (vs. $2,200 to buy the 1-way ticket).

That said, Delta and United have been impossible to find/book decent mileage tickets so I haven't flown either of them in years.

 

[Carolinian]

The airline mergers led the airlines to start downgrading their ff programs. I kept mid-tier elite status for years for the perks and had my preferred airline. I started with DL, then they downgraded so I moved over to NW. When DL bought NW, I fled to CO, but they merged with UA, That was not quite as bad a downgrade on their merger, but their program was not up to that of AA. So I did a challenge to move my status to AA. I was happy with them until US bought them and in that merger seriously downgraded the program. At that point, I gave up on ff programs and started flying price and convenience. I got rid of all my mile earning credit cards, and moved to cash back credit cards. ff program downgrades have continued, and I have tried to burn miles as much as possible but I still have some UA and AA miles to get rid of.

 

[DebBrown]

Yes, but I have also been able to book round trip tickets (or 2 1-ways) for under 20k miles on AA. Most recently, 9,500 to Jacksonville Thanksgiving weekend and 8,500 home to Milwaukee from Miami the Sunday prior to Christmas.

I have also been able to save A LOT of money booking AA tickets internationally . . . as compared to paying for them vs. mileage. To Lisbon was 19,000 miles (vs. over $600 1-way) back in October . . . and next October I'm flying home from Tokyo for "just" 37,000 (vs. $2,200 to buy the 1-way ticket).

That said, Delta and United have been impossible to find/book decent mileage tickets so I haven't flown either of them in years.

Maybe it's the routes you fly. We haven't had much luck. I switched to use Chase Sapphire travel rewards which at least gives me airline flexibility.

 

[Ken555]

To be fair, Basic Economy didn't provide many miles so this isn't a great loss. For example, I flew EWR-LAX and earned an amazing 194 miles total. Yup, 194.

But yeah, the travel industry is in a race to the bottom.