Ideas and suggestions for AAdvantage enhancements on AA.com?

It's sad to see an airline as customer-friendly as American doing something so customer unfriendly. It's also strange that the other airline doing it is Southwest.

This is one space where United, Delta, Alaska, Frontier, etc. are all ahead of American in terms of allowing customers to actually use their data.

I'll say this - until I can track my miles in a third party service, I'll intentionally not be interacting with the AAdvantage site any more than I have to, and certainly won't be clicking through any promotions offered. These moves to capture my eyeballs and data do nothing more than push me away from whatever they're you're trying to capture me into.

1. I would like the option for a full view of American Airlines seat inventory with full view access to all fare buckets including award inventory for AA and their partners. Why should I need to contact the American Airlines call center or subscribe to a third party website like www.expertflyer.com to gain knowledge of American Airlines seat inventory or receive "seat alerts" when a preferred seat or award inventory becomes available? I want American Airlines to give me the IT tools to allow me to empower myself to reserve and ticket my award travel with all oneworld system partners.

2. Regarding the full view access, when I sign-on to aa.com, I prefer, in the "my account, reservation preferences tab" that the user can select turning on search features such as "expert mode" for displaying seat inventory like from a Global Distribution System (GDS), "cost per mile like on FareCompare.com", and an overlay of "Seatguru.com" seat recommendations when viewing the aircraft seat map.

3. I really miss my American Airlines frequent flyer mileage updates using the GoMiles.com and AwardWallet.com applications. It seems like American Airlines does not want to make it easy for frequent flyers to track their miles using a single sign-on. It seems quite peculiar that American Airlines offers enhanced access to seat inventory information through a third party like expertflyer.com but not on aa.com and at the same time, AA does not want their customers to have third party access to frequent flyer mileage information through gomiles.com and awardwallet.com.

4. Before Delta Airlines assimilated Northwest Airlines, the old NWA.com web site which is no longer around, made it very easy to book partner award travel. Perhaps you can hire some of the former Northwest Airlines IT staff to help give the American Airlines website and award ticketing system more friendly functionality.

5. For the lifetime AA Platinum, many, due to old age will be retiring soon and flying less. Please consider allowing lifetime AAdvantage Platinum and lifetime AAdvantage Gold who are also over 55-65 years old to fast track to AAdvantage Executive Platinum by starting out each year with 50,000 miles or 25,000 in their annual mileage bank to help them try to hit the Executive Platinum goal. If you allow your senior citizen flyers access to this benefit, you will not overload your elite ranks and AA will offer senior travelers a unique selling proposition and reason to select American Airlines for their future travel requirements.

I'm with you on all but this point... you want the status, fly the miles. Nobody should get a jumpstart on any status.

+1

Repeating this and 2 other previously-posted observations:

It is annoying and illogical not to (be able to) arrive directly at my account when clicking "My Account".

The ability to see how/where the eVIPs were used--as mentioned in another post--would save on otherwise necessary telephone calls to the EXP desk.

To see the availability of partner award flights, as well as to book those award flights on line would be helpful and would save time.

My Account Screen could easily be added by making the login to AAdvantage.com. instead of thru AA.com. By instituting this small fix, we could all go directly to the AAdvantage Account Screen (with all the links to booking, promotion, etc) quickly without having to go to aa.com, then my account, then log in screens.

(and on the AAdvantage program itself, it would be nice to be able to pay for baggage fees with miles on award tickets for us lowly "members" who probably will not reach an elite status)

I understand the frustration of many elite travelers who believe that they will lose their first cabin seating opportunity if the elite ranks become overloaded. For example, American Airlines offered complimentary AAdvantage Executive Platinum® membership to Medal of Honor recipients. American Airlines offered lifetime AAdvantage Platinum and Gold Elite benefits to anyone who supported their revenue models through flying or supporting their partners. When American Airlines makes their decision to offer additional benefits to a market segment, they have already calculated the financial impact to their balance sheet.

Regarding the Medal of Honor recipients, there is an extremely low number of living people who received the United States highest military honor for valor in combat against an enemy force, who have survived, want to fly and want to choose American Airlines as their airline of choice.

Regarding lifetime Platinum and Gold Elite members: This segment of the market has displayed exceptional loyalty to American Airlines by accruing one million or multi-million miles through flying, credit card spending and other partner activity such as banking, car or hotel rentals. American Airlines earns ancillary revenue by selling their miles to their partners. As of December 1, 2011, American Airlines is modifying their program to limit lifetime elite accrual to flying on AA or their flying partners, or spending on a the Citi ExecutiveSM / AAdvantage® World EliteTM MasterCard® credit card with a $450.00 annual fee after the first year.

Regarding allowing senior citizen a fast-track option to AAdvantage Executive Platinum for the lifetime AAdvantage Platinum and AAdvantage Gold members, my thoughts were many seniors, due to old age will be retiring soon and flying less. Many companies offer senior citizens additional benefits so they don't lose this demographic market segment to a competitor. Offering the fast track option to AAdvantage Platinum Executive elite status for a person who does not fly will never impact your ability to secure a premium cabin seat. It may however increase American Airlines bottom line because these senior citizens, under the belief that they are special with AA, will spend money with AA partners, accrue miles that they will never use and, through failing memory, forget they had miles and let them expire as they will not be reminded to track their AA miles on gomiles.com or awardwallet.com.

If perhaps a senior citizen flyer did fly and received a free domestic upgrade on American Airlines, they would be sure to tell all their grandchildren how nicely AA treated them and recommend to their grandchildren that they should fly AA for the rest of their lives. The additional revenue from the next generation of flyers might even help AA avoid bankruptcy. From a demographic point of view, senior citizens will soon die of old age, therefore the senior citizen fast track to AAdvantage Executive Platinum® membership, like the Medal of Honor recipients, looks good on paper but should not significantly impact your ability to continue to score your first cabin upgrade.

If I was an airline executive at American Airlines, I would want to offer benefits that look good on paper but would not affect the bottom line of my operational expense.

How does that have anything to do with the website AA.com and specifically the AAdvantage pages on the website?

Glad you asked Rob. American Airlines posted:

I replied:

Then Mike Reed and Destination David disagreed with my number 5. I added some additional thoughts I had about number 5. Perhaps I should have said that American Airlines does not seem to use market and demographic segmentation on their website to their full advantage. For example, when you register for AAdvantage membership, if they collect demographic information such as age, gender, occupation, income, education, etc., they would be in a better position to serve up appropriate ads to help stimulate their business. For a person who has an age of 18, I would expect different trip offers and the graphics presented to them to be different than a person who is 65. Currently I see American Airlines serves up different web pages based on geographic segmentation. To view the differences, simply change your American Airlines country code here: https://www.aa.com/worldwideSites.do and see different AA ads served to you from the various AA geographic markets. From the cookies served up by the www.aa.com web site, I am sure AA uses web analytics to make your web browsing more enjoyable.

If American Airlines asked, I would be willing to complete an optional demographic profile for my travel needs and give AA additional optional information that they may not have such as family size, income, occupation, age, gender, education and nationality. If they teamed up with Gomiles.com or awardwallet.com, they would learn about many of my travel preferences and know where I plan to travel in the next year so they can target me with relevant offers. If my demographic information is tied to my AAdvantage profile, AA would be able give me only specific ads targeted to my demographic segment. Currently, I do not know of any way to update my American Airlines demographic profile or supply useful marketing information to American Airlines. Without, full demographic information on each customer, AA can miss out on being able to data mine their customer marketing information which can benefit the airline, their airline partners and you.

I want American Airlines to be successful and profitable. I think an airline like American Airlines has the potential to develop new customers and retain their clients from cradle to grave. I thought the information on what is displayed and how it is displayed on the American Airlines web site is what Maya and the AAdvantage team wants to know.

I hope this answers you question Rob. Let me know if it doesn't.

Better segmentation certainly seems like a reasonable request. Although, most people seem to lament targeted promos (see the stuff about DEQM only for residents of CA,IL,TX doing ORD/DFW-LAX/SFO) so I won't actually be requesting that type of thing while considering it perfectly valid for you to do so. I was mostly thinking that things like "give lifetime plat/gold members a head start on status" while a nice request, isn't actually related to the website but is instead a significant change to the AAdvantage program. Similarly, someone else earlier in the thread asked for changes to award fees, eliminating YQ from awards, rollover EQMs, etc, etc, all unrelated to the website.

Considering how people seem to fight tooth and nail to NOT give out personal information every time a promo or contest comes up, I'm not 100% sure this will go over well with all of AA's customers. Many members won't even join Facebook because they refuse to provide their personal demographic information.

As for your argument in favor of shortening the elite mileage needs for seniors, I still don't think you've convinced me that it's a great idea. Sure, the concept that rewarding seniors as a special group by incentivizing their continued flying looks fairly good on paper as you've said. Yet I still don't see why so many people seem to forget or overlook that LT PLT and LT GLD already are major rewards, concessions and incentives by AA to keep customers who can no longer fly at the levels they've done in pervious years to continue flying.

For someone who has achieved LT PLT (which would be required under your idea for seniors), what's the fundamental differences they'd receive by being fast tracked to EXP?

• Upgrades (unlimited domestic & SWUs)
• Upgrade window
• Business vs First check in for oneworld airlines
• Business vs First lounge access
• 1 group earlier during boarding

I've left off a bit that's unrelated to flying directly (such as award fees, inventory, etc). Based on this list, I'd say the only major difference is the upgrades. First check-in/lounge is nice to have but a business lounge/check in is just fine. As a LT PLT they still receive priority boarding so they'd have guaranteed luggage space. They still get preferred seats, too.

I don't see a dramatic upside to AA, and the only real benefit I see for the seniors is clouding the SWU field (I really don't care about domestic to be honest). As it stands, I'm in favor of AA's currently policy of insulating the benefits of EXP flyers. I am open to hearing more from you about the idea though, I just haven't been convinced!

Allow me to point out, in good humor, that we are not trying to convince you of anything, just American Airlines.

I agree with you Destination David. The majority of people, concerned about privacy choose to not give out personal demographic information. However, even if there is a minuscule one percent response, as the American Airlines AAdvantage® program is one of the largest and most popular loyalty programs in the world, American would have a significant representative survey sample to use for test marketing. I trust American Airlines with my life when I choose to fly with them and, I also trust American Airlines to safeguard my personal data and demographic information they have collected and share with their employees and flying partners.

Many American Airlines clients currently receive the benefit of information they have previously entered on AA.com when the information is shared with AA flying partners and government agencies. For example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has partnered with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and select airlines, including American Airlines, to test a free, voluntary expedited screening trial with a select group of known travelers. If you meet the criteria of being an AAdvantage program member who is determined eligible by the TSA, you may have received an opt-in invitation email from the AAdvantage program. For more information on TSA voluntary expedited screening, click here.

I am confident that some AAdvantage members who have daydreams about purchasing lots of shoes with their Citi ExecutiveSM / AAdvantage® World EliteTM MasterCard® could really appreciate this new program, as they will not need to remove their shoes during TSA security screenings on future American Airlines flights.

Just think, the American Airlines AAdvantage program which helps you earn free worldwide travel, can now also help save you from embarrassing foot odor when you take advantage of expedited TSA security screenings.

I also like the benefits of the current American Airlines elite program. I think it was well thought out. I think American Airlines should try minor changes to see if it can make them stand out from their competition. Regarding my previous comments for the fast track for senior citizens who are also lifetime AAdvantage elite, by the time you are 55-65 years old, many people in this age demographic have changed their flying habits and fly less. Old age and a reduction of their income presents a handicap to this market segment. Getting a customer in this demographic group to achieve 100,000 miles to become an AAdvantage Executive Platinum seems to be more of a challenge than someone 20-40 years younger. I think American Airlines could capitalize on their routes to warm climates and target the "snowbird" crowd who is generally older and maybe retired. To encourage this profit segment to fly more with American Airlines, you might want to test a fast-track incentive for older travelers. If American Airlines does not try this marketing trial, AA may be missing out on a profit opportunity from this market segment. Remember, American Airlines needs to make a profit to stay in business so they can please shareholders and continue to offer all of us continued elite benefits.

According to Eloy Fonseca Neto, I am American Airlines. Does that count?

It would be nice if you could authenticate that by giving me bonus miles or upgrading my status, but in any event I do wish you all the best and smooth landing as you undergo Chapter 11.

I have an additional recommendation for American Airlines. When I travel, instead of a laptop, I may only carry an Apple iPod for running PDA applications. Using the American Airlines mobile application, there appears no way that one can receive news about American Airlines. Accordingly, I might have missed knowledge of the AA bankruptcy or labor strike issues in London unless I had visited www.AA.com. I would like the ability to view all AA and AMR news on a PDA application.

Please consider adding a new tab on your mobile application for AA news releases as well as adding push notifications for essential AA system news.

You mean like Google News, with a customized section for American Airlines every day?

Exactly Mike.I like and prefer Google News, but, as it is a third party application like gomiles.com or awardwallet.com American Airlines might not want us to have data access. Oh, wait, that was the old American Airlines management. The new American Airlines is now one day old but I do not have my gomiles.com and awardwallet.com American Airlines data access restored. Maybe, the administration at the new American Airlines can work on restoring our data access to our third party access to our AAdvantage accounts on day two.

I refuse to fly AA until proper AwardWallet access is restored.

How many miles a year do you typically fly with AA?

I don't think "seniors" (55-65 yrs old as you defined it) should have any fast track to status either. Almost all the "seniors" that I know of, who are nearing retirement or have retired, fly a lot more than they did previously. Many of my family members are able to reach the highest tiers by flying the required amount.

The reason? They now have the time & money to do so.

I'm flying about the same as I did before retirement, but then I had 12 weeks off a year to make that work. Certainly have more opportunities to travel when you're not locked into specific dates. One thing I am doing is redeeming a lot more miles (like on my current trip in business class with LH) because I have the time to do that. I can't think of giving up my AA status, though l am leaving UA entirely over changes to their midtier and lifetime elite programs. They won't get a penny more from me.

Tom in Dresden, Germany today

I wonder if elderly passengers are flying more due to special "senior citizen" discounts offered when you designate you are 65 years old or more at www.aa.com and other airline websites.

I'd like to see a link to My Reservations at the top of the screen, next to My Account.