American Updates Mileage Earning Rates On Partner Airlines As Of August 1, 2016

I'm at least glad we will be earning EQDs on partners. Keeping my 1K with UA is so hard when I get nothing for all of my LX/SQ/TK flying.

Has American published the method to be used to award AAdvantage miles for trips booked through AA Vacations? On previous trips, AAV has assigned a fare basis of zero for the flight portions.

So what's the sweet spot/most economical way to meet the EQD spend going to be - Business class/Full business fares? Qatar has usually had the best prices, is that going to be the way to go from preliminary thoughts?

Wait, are the EQDs waived for non-US residents?

@ Ben -- Thank you for the post. Portions of Gary's post on this topic was incomprehensible...

@ Gene

I agree that Gary's post incomprehensible. He used CAI-DOH-ATL as a fare example but used the mileage calculation for CAI-DOH-LAX. He rarely performs proofreading before he posts. Maybe if we embarrass him he will change.

This is such a stupid move on the part of AA. For people outside USA it will be better to travel in partner companies instead of AA itself. This year I have done countless r/t with them on GRU-DFW, GRU-JFK and GRU-LAX, plus DFW-HKG and the transconroutes.
So by the next year, in order to qualify for ExecPlat I will be giving my money to JJ/LA/IB/BA to be able to reach this EQD... It really does not make any sense to me.

All that means is AA will devalue eqd partner earnings next year if they find that too many exp are earning via partner flights

Hey Ben slight error -- you said [Qatar] “C” and “D” fares no longer earn a 25% class of service redeemable miles bonus, when in fact it's R and I which got the boot. I should know (he chuckled ruefully) as I just checked and my Qatar flights next year are I.

@ James K. -- Good catch, thank you!

Are the elite mileage bonuses also going away (100% EXP+PLT; 25% GLD) when flying on oneworld partner carriers? If so, that would be a massive drop in award mileage earned for higher tier elites: on the sample itinerary above, you'd only get 20,498 miles as opposed to 40,996 for flying on that QR I ticket after Aug 1 as an EXP.

@Ben –

Ok. So if I book a ticket for next year on BA thru their website, but it’s a codeshared AA flight, I’m still gonna get the BA EQD and not AA EQD. Correct?

When it’s published at 20% EQD of a flight, it makes me think I’m gonna get 20%- of $$ paid. But it seems in essence, it’s 20%+

Kind of right???

@ Stu -- No, you still earn the elite mileage bonus on partner flights.

@ Melinda -- Correct, that's my understanding, at least. If it's a BA ticket number you should earn based on distance flown. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

@ Andy -- It's certainly possible, but I don't necessarily assume so, as we haven't seen that on other airlines. What's the real cost of people accruing Executive Platinum status through partner airlines if they're not actually flying American?

@ Oneworldflyer -- They're not.

@ Bryan -- Well we'll see if there's a credit card waiver, but if there's not, I'd say EQDs through discounted business class on partner airlines is the way to go.

@ Matt -- That's a great question. Haven't heard about that one way or another as of now.

@ Danny -- I wasn't trying to shame Gary (hell, turns out MY grammar in the comment above is incorrect.) I do think Gary's writing has gotten much sloppier, as he tries to frantically keep up with the full-time bloggers. Ben would never publish some of the babble that Gary posts, so I always appreciate Ben's thorough, thought-out, well written posts. When I need to go back and research a topic, I always include the name of this blog in the search, NOT VFTW.

@ Danny -- More bad grammar on my part! Hey, but I receive no compensation for writing comments... 🙂

How do minimum mileage guarantees work on partner airlines for AA?

Despite AA's website explicitly saying "elite members will earn at least 500 miles for flights under 500 miles on American Airlines and American Eagle (including codeshare flights booked as an American Airlines flight number) and participating AAdvantage and oneworld airlines", I was only given 250 EQMs for a flight from LHR-GVA.

Dear Lucky,

Let say you buy Business class international D fare all from AA.com, but one segment indicate travel with JAL (Flight number listed as AAxxxx / AA code share 4 digits with JAL)
-Do you earn EQM x 2 times?

Thanks.

@Ben - Does your back hurt from all the water you carry for AA?

If we still get the 100% bonus for being PLT and EXP then the change in premium cabin earning on partners is not that negative of a change.

@ Ben -- to clarify: mutli-flight itineraries ticketed by AA will accrue "revenue" (for the purposes of status) according to the airline on your flight number, not the ticket stock? e.g. I can still buy a OneWorld Global Explorer ticket from the American RTW desk, issued on AA ticket stock, but if it mostly consists of flights on partner airlines using their flight numbers, then my revenue spend will be calculated as a proportion of the mileage, not a fraction of the cost of the ticket. Is that right?

As an AA exec plat who lives/works in Shanghai now, I do find the lack of an EQD exemption a bit unfair. I travel quite a bit within mainland China for work and there are no oneworld carriers who fly domestically (there's Dragonair [soon to be Cathay Dragon] and Cathay Pacific, but they pretty much only fly to/from Hong Kong). So, none of my domestic travel accrues mileage/EQD on AA.

That didn't matter in the past, as I'd accrue enough EQM from my trips back home to the US to requalify. But that's much more difficult with the $12K EQD requirement.

Lucky,

Does this flight from CMN-JFK factor in the AA EXP bonus of 120% on partners?

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/elite-status/elite-status-benefits.jsp

So for the AA EXP it would be 24,597 redeemable miles after August 1, 2016.