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Cathay Pacific is the latest partner airline to be bookable on AA’s website. No doubt this is great news for those looking to make booking easier ( who isn’t, right?), but AA’s bookability has gotten shockingly better over a relatively short timeframe. A US Carrier doing something to add value? Something doesn’t quite add up here.
I’d argue that this isn’t a gift horse, but rather a trojan one indeed.
Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen Japan Airlines, Air Tahiti Nui, Royal Jordanian, Qatar Airways, Etihad, etc become online booking options, and while that’s great news for those looking to streamline booking and see more options with greater ease, I’d argue that long term – it’s not the best news. Why?
More availability online = less need for reps
We’ve had access to these awards in the past, and that favored the savvy, but it also meant reps needed to be involved for booking, and that leads to more transparency because they reference rules and reasons for why something works or doesn’t work routing wise.
AA has some great routing rules, and reps, albeit it may take a call or three, willing to make those routing rules work for you. I can attest that the more status you carry the easier it is to get those tickets issued, but regardless, you can get reps to manually piece together tickets for you. Now, unless you’re elite and get those fees waived as a perk, you’ll be paying phone booking fees on itineraries that they would have waived them for, and also, ones that you could manually build.
With more availability online, the less need there will be for reps, and ultimately I’d guess if AA could remove reps from the award redemption equation they would. At least as much as they have from revenue ticketing – it’s enormous cost savings I’d assume, plus they can more easily devalue miles.
AA is moving towards dynamic pricing for awards.
We’ve seen data points on this and know that, certainly on AA’s on metal, award redemptions won’t be based off a fixed chart, but rather will heavily fluctuate. In fact, charts won’t exist externally, maybe they still will behind closed doors, but without leaks, nothing will be transparent.
I can’t imagine AA is improving their online booking capabilities to hire more agents, but rather to minimize overhead and diminish call center staff. More tickets booked online means less need for agents to book them.
Try calling United or Delta and request that they piece together an itinerary you built that abides by routing rules but their online engine isn’t pricing. Good. Luck.
More miles will get used for less redemptive value. Again, there are no charts
AA is moving towards the exact model laid out by Delta, then followed by United, and it isn’t going to increase the value of your Aadvantage miles. My guess is that it’s going to lock redemptions to whatever is available online. And, that my friends, will be another major devaluation in Aadvantage.
If you see award space available online, but it doesn’t price correctly online, Delta basically says…what you see is what you get. United pretty much does the same. AA, will soon, follow in those footsteps is my guess. That means, even if you see 2 segments available for redemption on one ticket, if you can’t book them together online and instead need to book them as two individually priced segments, you’re likely to just have to deal. To those who aren’t savvy, which is overwhelmingly most people, they’ll just pay the higher cost because they never knew that they could book lower, nor should be able to.
AA will continue to whittle down their accounts payable on points for a far less value of redemption, which helps bottom line, but also erodes consumer value and trust.
Without charts that we can even point to, who knows how AA will price segments in the future, but the more partners that are available online means they can just point to their search engine and say…that’s what it is, so that’s what you pay.
Man…just in 2014, a measly 5 years ago, you got 8 System Wide Upgrades as Exec Plat, one way first class to anywhere in Asia was just 67.5k miles, and the program was based off miles flown, not revenue. Crazy how much this program has been gutted. But hey…you can book this online now which is pretty cool 😉
cathay first class
Am I off base? What are your thoughts?
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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