Revealed: American AAdvantage Elite Choice Rewards

Nice touch and at least for EXP a nice selection.

A few years ago when AA introduced Platinum Pro they stabbed all of their Platinum for Life members in the back. As a Platinum for Life member I consider American Airlines to be a Traitor.
I look for the lowest fare or points required for my flights without any regard to American Airlines.

Have you taken a look lately at AA award space made available to partners? Avios have become very difficult to use. AA will have a seat requiring 12.5k miles (should be saver space) and call it a "web special" so they don't make it available to partners.

International business class is basically non-existent as well. It's gotten a little ridiculous.

Ben,

Are you saying that an EXPLAT requalifying as EXPLAT gets 3 choices, 1 from Plat Pro and 2 from Explat ? (hence the 5 SWU). It does not seem to be written that way. What have I misunderstood?

@ Pierre -- That's correct, and I've verified that with American. What do you see that suggests otherwise?

@Alan I agree, after being loyal to AA since 1987 and flying over 5,300,000 lifetime miles the Platinum Pro was a gut punch!

Speaking of Admirals Clubs, has anyone noticed how crowded some of them are lately? AA has closed some clubs, meaning the ones that are open can be very crowded.

A few weeks ago I experienced this in Miami, where there wasn't even room in the main club and they forced us to sit in some overflow area where there wasn't even water to drink -- you had to track down an attendant and ask them to go into the main lounge to get anything you wanted.

Yesterday I was at PHX and it was similar -- lounge in the upper A concourse was closed, so the lounge in the lower A was packed to capacity. Not to mention the avocado toast station is supposed to be open until 10:00am, but they started breaking it down at 9:40am. When I asked at 9:45am if they could still serve me, the attendant just said no and continued breaking things down. There was basically nothing else in the lounge to eat other than fresh fruit and a couple of yogurts.

Not only is this crowding unsafe from a social distancing perspective, it just seems like Admirals Club is increasingly a bad value. Most of us aren't traveling very much these days, but the annual fee is the same, so we're getting much less value out of our memberships. Then AA closes clubs and forces us into unsafe, crowded situations. This is getting very frustrating.

I sent AA customer relations an email with feedback about the Miami situation from a few weeks ago and they responded quickly (same day) but just said "we're sorry." No explanation, no commitment to look into it or pass the feedback along to the Admirals Club team, and certainly no compensation of any kind. I'm ExPlat so you'd think they would at least offer a more heartfelt apology.

Hey AA, lately I get a text from premium passenger agents the day of my flight telling me that might flight is on time and that I can respond if I need any help. This is cool, but seems unnecessary. Maybe axe that program and take the cost savings and put it back into Admirals Clubs since I spend good money on lounge access and feel more and more like I'm getting ripped off.

The clubs are getting overcrowded. They definitely need to open the D15 or E club at MIA, at least in the afternoon and evening. The social distancing doesn't bother me but I often have to take calls at the AC and when it becomes as loud as the terminal it negates some of the reason to pay for membership. Ditto PHX.

I'd also wish they bring back showers.

What about those extra 50,000 EQM threshold ? 120,000,160,000 and 200,000 mark ? Are those extra gifts going away?

Very good improvement. But my Delta 360 status wins over any airline offer. Delta simply best. And I’m global services on United as well. Mid tier won’t get anybody much. Fly too much or not enough on status tiers. This is positive, but still fails in comparison to Delta most valued. It is a treat. Even in this pandemic, they brought me bottle of Cristal on my bday to enjoy on flight with food catered from Ruth Chris. I didn’t ask, purely sets them above. True great service no airline compares. And again, I didn’t make those requests. Go DELTA.

I flew 3 class service transcon in Flagship first this week twice MIA-LAX. I observed executive platinum upgrades clear directly into F.

I disagree with Lucky while the service is much better on other airlines the level of seat comfort in F and J on the 77W or 787 would be just as comfortable on a long haul flight. I’d rather fly American and get some decent sleep.

@Florida Sunshine. Agreed Delta is the best but they also charges 20% more than the competition on equivalent routes.