American Airlines

[JGibson]

Can't complain since my dad paid for my family of four but I was certainly not impressed enough to decide to purchase from them on my own. I got to experience this:

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/01/aa-new-boarding-groups/

where I ended up in group 8 as the gate agents yelled that anybody below group 7 would have to check their bag that was destined into the overhead. Only to discover about 4 rows of empty overhead bin space right where we were sitting after getting on the plane(s). Plus, when the machine quit working in PHX where I tried to upgrade it and went to customer service, I was told that only the machine can do what I want and get out.

Oh yeah - no group on your pass is better than 8 or 9 since it gets you in with 7.

[JGibson]

And what the hell is concierge key? Is that why about 20 people boarded my PHX --> CLT flight before they even called the first class customers?

[xyzzy]

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 2:29:17 PM UTC-4, JGibson wrote:

> Can't complain since my dad paid for my family of four but I was certainly not impressed enough to decide to purchase from them on my own. I got to experience this:
>
> https://thepointsguy.com/2017/01/aa-new-boarding-groups/
>
> where I ended up in group 8 as the gate agents yelled that anybody below group 7 would have to check their bag that was destined into the overhead. Only to discover about 4 rows of empty overhead bin space right where we were sitting after getting on the plane(s).

This is because group 9 passengers ("Basic economy") have to pay to carry on a bag, so they have to make sure there is room for their bags, since they already fucking paid.

> Plus, when the machine quit working in PHX where I tried to upgrade it and went to customer service, I was told that only the machine can do what I want and get out.
>
> Oh yeah - no group on your pass is better than 8 or 9 since it gets you in with 7.

I like this change, it's truth in advertising. I used to joke that when you get your boarding pass you should mentally add 5 to your group number since group 1 boards after AA executive platinum, one-world ruby pass, AA platinum credit card members, AA concierge blowjob status, etc, etc.

At least on AA now your group number is real. Can't say the same for other legacy airlines. Of course no-one's boarding system beats Southwest.

A former rfscker summed it up best when I pondered why the other airlines don't just adopt the Southwest model. His answer was: "Southwest makes money flying people to places on airplanes so their incentive is to be good and efficient at that. The other legacy airlines make their money on fees and selling status, so their incentive is to maximize that and not efficiency or passenger experience"

Btw chances are pretty good that if you have group 7 or 8 you can board with group 6 and they won't care. In the old system I learned that once they got to group 2 they didn't care. Basically old group 1 new group 5 are the last groups you have to pay extra or have status for, once those guys are on the gate agents don't really give a shit. But now that they have group 9, for complete loser cheapskate cattle class, that may no longer be true. I now have a credit card that gets me group 5 (old group 1) every time so I don't pay that much attention to whether or not that works.

[tim.vanwa...@gmail.com]

Concierge key is like super duper executive platinum. It's invite only. I'm platinum, so group 3, though I get bumped to first at least 75% of the time.

Having status on an airline makes such a huge difference in the quality of the experience. The times I have to fly another airline are either miserable or more expensive with paying for upgrades, etc.

[xyzzy]

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 3:07:29 PM UTC-4, tim.vanwa...@gmail.com wrote:
> Concierge key is like super duper executive platinum. It's invite only. I'm platinum, so group 3, though I get bumped to first at least 75% of the time.
>
> Having status on an airline makes such a huge difference in the quality of the experience. The times I have to fly another airline are either miserable or more expensive with paying for upgrades, etc.

That's kind of the point. Most of the legacy airlines are selling status, not transportation.

I can't get status because my local airport isn't a fortress hub and isn't dominated by any one airline, so while I travel quite a bit it isn't consistently on the same airline enough to acquire status.

So I just prefer to fly Southwest whenever they work for me, buy early bird check in for $30, and not worry about any of that shit. Works for me, YMMV, etc.

[JGibson]

That's what I do when I pay on my own. But I don't fly that much, so I have no chance of getting super-duper status anyway. But I don't think Southwest flies into Kona, where we had our family gathering. And my dad has his super high status on AA, so that's where he bought us tickets. But the $2,000+ tickets got us squat.

[xyzzy]

btw I'm currently on an initiative to burn all my American FF miles. AA has been devaluing them like crazy since the USAIR merger and I want to use them before they are completely worthless. I had a whole bunch of them accumulated from having an AA credit card for decades, lots of flying them on business in the past, etc.

gf and I went to Memphis on them last month
We're going to Alaska on them in September
will probably use them for a holiday trip too this year.

I also got a quick 60K miles by getting their AA signature card which has a $95 annual fee but it's waived for the first year, I plan to cancel by then. (also gets me free bag fees and group 5 boarding for my whole party, even during the flights I get with my accumulated FF miles). Those 60K miles went right into our Memphis tickets, because if you let them sit they will be devalued again!

[agavi...@gmail.com]

Yeah. I left AA when they killed the RDU hub. At the same time I took two Aspen vacations and a Virgin Gorda trip on miles. Paid for everything but lift tickets, dinner, and drinks. I flew USAir mostly with some SWA, Delta and United thrown in. Now I'm back with AA and you're right.

I'm only sticking with one airline because I trAvel so much and need status to make it tolerable-ish. Otherwise, I would just fly whoever.

[agavi...@gmail.com]

PS You could always donate them.

[xyzzy]

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 5:32:58 PM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> PS You could always donate them.

I did and it burned me because I donated a trip rather than a set number of miles. Between the time the trip was purchased at a silent auction event and the purchaser came to me to redeem it, AA had devalued the miles so it took twice as many as I budgeted for to redeem the prize.

[agavi...@gmail.com]

LOL

[xyzzy]

On Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 10:18:18 AM UTC-4, the_andr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> LOL

No good deed goes unpunished!