AA Status Match underway

AA is pursuing UA's top flyers as vigorously as US is pursuing AA!!

Maybe he whinged for the 1,432,752nd time about high W fares from Australia to the US (I kid. I met him in DRW last year and he's a good guy. But he really, clearly doesn't like those W fares).

I'll talk about this in EZE when I see you. It's off-topic to this thread.

I feel for you in that situation, as traveling with a loved one who has special needs, especially Alzheimer's, is a challenging experience in many ways. I know you have your Dad's best interest in mind, without a doubt.

Still, I don't see how this set of facts is any different from a fare increase immediately before purchase. I do not believe you would get any traction in trying to get the airline to honor the previously-lower fare in that case. The buy-ups (really a fare-up) are tied to the price of the lowest upgradeable fare category you qualify for, and if the price of the fare-up increased, it's likely because the underlying upgradeable fare basis was hiked. Although a new revenue management system was rolled out in mid-March, I do not think this was some sort of subjective price increase tied to your purchase of the upgrade on the outbound segment.

Frustrating, yes, but in my view not the kind of egregious wrong that would justify changing one's loyalty. With that said, variable pricing for all types of ancillaries is and will continue to be a reality of the New United. In fact, the ability to price E+ dynamically based on the quality of the seat, time to departure, demand, and other factors was one of the reasons cited for keeping SHARES (besides the massive cost savings).

Finally, be careful reading too many of the negative posts here and on TOBB. Confirmation bias at its best...

(Full disclosure: I applied for the AA status match. If the 8 EVIPs post to matched accounts, well, it's worth checking out!)

Yeah, they're so bad here I have looked at this, considered it momentarily, then said, "naaah." VX has more gates out of SFO than AA does.

No point signing up for it if you can't fly it.

The few issues (they're not important enough to call problems, really) I've had with UA post-merger can all be classified as issues that are not operational in nature, and none that affect my enjoyment of UA long term.

good luck for US and it will never happen

Do it for the waived close-in award fees!

So, here is my personal take on this development.

I maybe a little different 1K then others for a couple of reasons. I guess I might fall into what some posters define as a “bottom feeder”, which I find offending but let them think they are better. 90% of my flying is international, but my employer will only pay for Y. It’s up to me to find ways and means to sit up front if I can. Thus, I have (and still am) learning all I can into ways I can afford to do this.

If there are other FF’ers that for whatever reason are trying to do the same thing on whatever airline, more power to them. This includes any status match with whatever airline they think might be better than their current choice. So I do not condemn anyone taking this current AA status match, it’s actually a great business move by AA and requires no challenge at all which I think is rare.

For me personally, I looked at AA recently but for these reasons I just didn’t find a benefit:

•No E+ (for those times I’m not lucky enough to find a way up front). Yes, they have plans for E+ but likely will take several years to complete.
•AA’s business class is either recliner chairs or those slip-n-slip “not true lie-flat” chairs. If I really liked those I would have been with LH a long time ago.
•For me *A is much better than OW.

But, if the majority of my flying was domestic I may have a different take on this status match. I don’t begrudge anyone on their personal choice to try out a different company if they are not getting the product they want. I’m a true believer in mutual respect, both business and personal, and if someone is not getting that then I support them in moving on.

ozstamps posted a lot, but would you actually use the term "regular" ... ?

-David

I prefer the term "low yield benefit maximizer"

I have 2K AA miles. Doesn't seem like a huge benefit for me.

I have none. I had about 80K miles, which after I finally quit AA, I decided to give a free for all. Plane tickets to anyone that wanted one. Ended up giving away 2 round trips and 1 regional ticket to people that work for me.

The part that pissed me off was, that I had to charge the tickets (taxes) to my credit card, since it was coming of my AA account.

If you keep it long enough with no activity, it will expire.

I'm going back to 2000-2003. Pre UA bk. Gosh, I'm dating myself.

Back then the SWU's were paper, they came in a white envelope. Getting the envelope was an event. Gaucho will remember.

10 years ago. LOL.

After UA dropped its attempt at a JFK hub (circa 2003), I moved business to CO ex-EWR, and got used to that system. So in essence, I am a creature of both carriers, and delighted that it has merged finally.

But my old compadres at UA (on FT) have officially lost it. How many Goodbye, United threads do we need? First comes denial, acceptance will come eventually.

Bolding mine.
I was a regular back then (September 2000); or maybe some might say irregular.
One last thing, the quality of a post is more important than the quantity. Accuracy counts too.

Thank you for your kind words. I do love my dad, and I'm also thinking about the FAs who might have to deal with him alone if I weren't there to help keep him calm. He's usually fine, but there are times.... Whew!

The difference in a last minute price increase and this situation is the way it is presented. They offer one price for an outbound upgrade, another price for the return upgrade, and a discounted price for buying both. The discount for buying both implies that if I buy it one direction, the discount will not be available if I come back to buy it in the other. This happened to me before (I had forgotten at the time of this purchase), but it wasn't important to me, as in those occurrences I didn't plan to buy the upgrade in other direction.

If I saw a price one day, didn't buy it, then returned the next day and the price had increased, I would not be at all upset with them. It was the instantaneous increase that made my skin crawl.

There was never anything "regular" about Ozstamps.

I remember that entire crap between Premex and Ozstamps. And I've heard some stories from people that attended a DO he arranged.

-David

I'm going way back. 12 years. Strangely, I've never meet him before, Ozstamps, but I know who he is. At one point, people suspected I was a clone of his, but I assure you that I am not Ozstamps. LOL. Flashback to 12/10/00

Back to original topic : The AA match

On FT : People were photoshopping screen shots, etc - these are people I refuse to associate with. Have they no shame? Also the endless bickering. Endless. The UA forum on FT is officially toxic. TOXIC.


So that's it. I've decided to officially semi retire from flyertalk. I'm surprised SanDiego1K and the mods are not doing something to rein in the endless bickering, which is tired.

As for me, I have no reason to switch : My upgrade percentage is 100% going back 12 months. Granted, most of my fares are high, and domestically a lot of it is on United p.s, JFK/LAX often already ticketed in Business.

Also my SWU clear rate is 100% (Y->C) less so (C->F). And I like the program (Mileage Plus). As well as the partners. Full disclosure : I have been downgraded a few times from Business (Z) to coach. Internationally. That was not fun.

Domestically, from what I understand, AA clears domestic upgrades based on time of purchase (not fare?) and status. Being a business owner myself, I think this is lunacy. You want people to be paying for high fares for a premium product. How can you, AA expect to turn a profit?

8 SWU's valid on any fare? . My travels take me to places beyond NRT and LHR so that is of no use to me. And I hate LHR. Even if I did not hate AA, those would be non starters.

The bottom feeders should move. I have no objections to this.

lol your miscategorized post is still there.

Are you GS?

-David

How can you say that? A year ago, if I didn't read the forum for a day, there would be 2 - 4 pages to catch up on. Recently, if I miss a day, there are 4 - 5 threads to catch up on.

1K

I hope you were appropriately compensated as I am not sure many people would stick around after even the first time that happened. Is it a particular route?

$300. I believe.

A few routes. All international.

I'm not sure many people would stick around? LOL. This has happened to me also on Emirates and Qatar. In addition to United.

People bitch about wanting to get an upgrade, sometimes, I get nervous about getting a downgrade. LOL

Back to original topic : I'm reading mixed messages re: match
Some are even getting 8 AA swu's with the match, with zero flying.

If that isn't giving away the store, I'm not sure what is.

8 SWUs? That Is tempting. Though quite frankly I wouldn't likely have much of a chance to use them in a useful or T&C-compliant fashion by Feb 28, 2013.