AAdvantage® Million Miler Program Launches on 12/1/11

I don't think Dec.1 is a good start date. Why Can't you postergate to January 1st?? That would be less painfull!!!

Is the idea to get people to fly less on American Airlines?
Is anybody now thinking positively about flying more on American Airlines.
What I'm thinking is that I won't need to keep my new Citi credit card as long as I previously had thought.

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I agree, the value of the Citi credit card has gone gone enormously in my opinion. And AA makes money from Citi, while it loses money from flying passengers. Time to sell AA and Citi stock??

Now if only my 3.7 million miles post from the Cartera/VZW deal before December...

Yes. The AA cards in this house will be gone.

There are MUCH better return rates out there for me.

Aside from lifetime status, won't those credit card miles be just as valuable next year in terms of redeeming award travel or using towards upgrades?

While I agree that this is a set back to those who are seeking lifetime status and overall AA knew going into this that many of the people who are on MP/FT etc were going to be hugely disappointed in the annoucement, I think we are missing that we are such a small segment of AA's customer base. Even when you look at AA elite customers, the vast majority are unaware of MP/FT and the efforts put into making the most out of AA's program.

While many of us might drop our credit cards/bank accounts/mileage tactics, the fast majority of AA's customers were unaware of the unofficial program, were not actively trying to gain lifetime status, etc.

I don't think AA is all too worried that they are going to miss out on boatloads of income from selling miles. I'm willing to bet they crunched the numbers, weighed the odds, and believe that they're going to come out on the better end of this decision financially than if they kept the old structure. It's a calculated risk, they knew many here would be upset and unhappy.

I guess we will see how this pans out.

For myself? I'll probably hit lifetime GLD sometime in the next few years, I'm doubtful on PLT though.

Yes, but earning them on something like the SPG Amex will be more flexible, and you'll get more miles/$ (1.25 compared to 1 @ 20K transfers). Since there's an annual fee on my Citibank card, I'll definitely be canceling when it comes around. No need for it with Amex Platinum and Amex SPG.

I, for one, am looking forward to the first "double base mileage" promotion of 2012!

Mike Reed said it best, stick to SPG and get 1.25 or better if there are promotions running.

That's it for me - I'll not enter any more AA 1,000,000 mile sweepstakes

AA is going to see a burst of activity that will translate into real cash from CC applications, mile conversions, etc. from those of us on the cusp. Shortly thereafter, they:
A. File bankruptcy, or
B. Devalue miles substantially.

I'm going to my happy place now.

I went in for a measly 400K. I knew I should have ordered more glitter screen protectors!

Well, Pizza has a million SPG points. Time to borrow about 600K and get to lifetime gold

Seriously, this move is long overdue, everyone knew it was coming and we should be happy it lasted as long as it did.

I still think it's a pretty good deal compared to United. Miles earned on any airline partners still count, on UA you have to plant your a** in an old, crappy UA seat to earn the miles. Here, you can fly on BA or CX (and hopefully Alaska too!)

And Delta?? Come on.... It's like Hugo Chavez is running the show over there. Who knows what they'll think of next

David, seriously??

There is no way AA will gain in this!!! I tried to racionalized, but I see no way. They will loose revenue from Mileage Multiplier, Miles from website, AA Credit Card. Perhaps in a long run, about 20 years from now they will get something out of this, but in the short-term. Just taking myself for example. I live in a house with 6 people, Dad, mom, wife, daughter and uncle! All of us were buying Miles annualy and using the Mileage Multiplier Machine. I also have the AA citibank credit card. After dec. 1st all of this will stop. Imagine, just in my household how much AA will loose, with my calculations about 15K USD!!! That's just in my house!!! Now... of course the majority of people does not know about this program, but even so, those who knew about it and put in an effort to get there without flying much (I'm afraid of flying, believe me) will have no chance at all to ever achieve those statuses on a non-flying basis.

That's just my belief, of course you can assess that is better for AA. But in my opinion, AA just cut a huge arm of revenue. Then again it's my opinion based on my profile!

I love that Mike!!! Double BASE MILES PROMO!!!! LOL.... OR BUY MILES TO MM STATUS PROMO TOO!!!

Tommy is right - it still beats other alliances in terms of earning. Think of how often you hear about earning *A miles on all the different carriers, but realizing they don't go towards MM status on any of them if it's not that airline's metal.

Here, any OW metal counts. This is huge, and it's good for the alliance which is good for AA.

I'm personally looking forward to US joining OW now so I can earn OW miles on another domestic carrier places where AA doesn't fly, or doesn't have great schedules. Who at AA needs to be in charge of wooing US, now?

Or perhaps Tommy can arrange a special earning bonus for OW Do attendees? (BTW, when is registration open for that, and for the October announcement? I'll be in LA!)

All joking aside, you should seriously consider a BAEC account for everyone, and combining the earnings into a Household Account. This all depends on your redemption patterns, of course. If you use miles to upgrade on AA metal, it's not such a great deal. If you use the miles for domestic or international travel, it can be as good a deal or better than straight redemptions on AA. The only downside is using BA miles for AA travel requires AA having SAAver award availability.

No... AA is better for us in the terms of redemption, and I can always use GOL here which is very good too!!!

Gold status for 1,000,000 BIS miles flown is simply uncompetitive in my opinion--AA have gone from the most generous million miler program to the least generous overnight. As evidence, let's take a business flyer that flies half on paid premium cabins (business) and half on deep discount economy fares (personal) and look at his path to million miler on each three major US legacy. Let's assume this typical flyer will fly 100,000 BIS miles per year. Let's also assume this typical flyer will spend $60,000 a year on his or her cobranded credit card.

• On DL, this flyer will rack up 155,000 MQMs per year. That's 50,000 BIS miles on cheapo economy tickets earning 1 MQM/BIS, 50,000 BIS miles on paid F/J tickets earning 1.5 MQM/BIS, and 30,000 MQMs earned through credit card spend. Since MQMs are used to determine DL lifetime status, it will take him or her 6 1/2 years to earn lifetime DL Silver, and 13 years to earn lifetime DL Gold.
• On UA, this flyer will rack up 100,000 BIS miles per year, which are the only miles that currently count toward UA Million Miler status. Since BIS miles are used to determine lifetime status, it will take him or her 10 years to hit lifetime UA Premier Executive.
• On the old AA program, assuming two thirds of his premium flying is paid J and one third is paid F, he earns 276,666 RDMs per year. That's 50,000 miles in deep discount economy plus 50,000 EXP bonus miles, 16,667 miles in paid F plus 8,333 COS bonus miles and 16,667 EXP bonus miles, 33,333 miles in paid J plus 8,333 COS bonus miles and 33,333 EXP bonus miles, and 60,000 credit card miles. Since RDMs are currently used to determine lifetime status, it will take him or her just over 3 1/2 years to earn lifetime AA Gold, and just over 7 years to earn lifetime AA Platinum.
• On the new AA program, he earns 100,000 "Million Miler" miles per year. Since "Million Miler" miles will be used under the new program to determine lifetime status, it will take him or her 10 years to earn lifetime AA Gold, and 20 years to earn lifetime AA Platinum

Based on the above analysis, it's clear the old program was overly generous. However, assuming DL Gold, UA Premier Executive and AA Platinum are equivalent (and, as far as yearly qualifying activity and benefits, they roughly are), it would take the same prototypical flyer 7 years to earn it under the old AA, 10 years under UA, 13 years under DL, and 20 years under the new AA program. That's laughable to me, and renders the program useless to all but those who've already amassed large quantities of Program To Date miles. Most of those who travel 100,000 miles a year don't do so for 20 years, but they may do so for 7-10 years, with some build-up travel before and wind-down travel after. Are the only people that should get lifetime Platinum those that are Executive Platinum for 20 years?!? Platinum just doesn't offer enough benefits for that, I'm afraid.

To Maya and those at AA following this thread: I understand that the million miler ranks are overflowing--as you can see above, the current program is just too generous. However, you really need to do one of three things to make the new program competitive:

• Include elite bonuses as "Million Miler" miles; or
• Allow folks that are elite as of December 1 a choice: either the already announced plan to convert our existing Program To Date miles to "Million Miler" miles and use the same 1,000,000 threshold for gold and 2,000,000 threshold for Platinum, or give us the option to reset our counters to zero and alter the new program to award Platinum at 1,000,000 "Million Miler" miles (as currently calculated, with no elite status or cabin bonuses included); or
• Replace the statuses earned through the Million Miler program with intermediate statuses that would interleave with the existing ones in terms of benefits and priority: Something like Annual Gold > Million Gold > Annual Platinum > Million Platinum > Executive Platinum. This would add value to the levels given to Million Milers. Those that already have million miler status would continue to slot into the less beneficial Annual levels, with a chance to reach the Million levels after a period of continued flying.

Any of these options would give some modicum of parity among the big three US-based legacies, putting AA in line with the worlds two largest airlines (who are also AA's primary competition).

Sure! According to some of us, you could have bought 10 phone covers for $3 each with free shipping, for a total cost of $30. How is that for a deal?

Seems this whole discussion is rapidly getting into the crazy "knee jerk reaction" phase.
A close look at the comparison with the SPG Amex is a wash imho.

1) Visa and Mastercard accepted in more places than Amex .. especially in Europe.
2) Vitually all year my Citicard Advantage Visa and Mastercards were offering a 20% spend bonus.
3) Discount AA milage awards.
4) SPG Amex carries an annual fee.
5) Business Citi gives discounts on AC new memberships and renewals.

Speaking of knee jerk reactions, I am going to forget AA or any other miles from now on and exclusively focus on accumulating MP "likes" and other status levels here.

I disagree .. as brief as possible.
1) Some BA awards require almost twice as many miles as AA
2) YQ
3) Upgrading using BA miles is a joke.

Was this lifetime status really that valuable to you to pay fares that are double today?