A few days ago, I shared my awful experience flying American, where the carrier’s handling of a delay was oh-so-bad, yet oh-so-typical for the airline. Some people (fairly) asked me why I still frequently fly with the airline, and am loyal to American. Let me explain, as the answer is a bit nuanced.
The short answer is that I’d no longer consider myself to be loyal to American. However, that’s not to say that I don’t fly the airline sometimes, and it’s also not to say that I don’t participate in AAdvantage, and even pursue elite status. Let me explain.
Living in Miami, American is often the best choice
Let me start by saying that I’d no longer consider myself to be loyal to American. Airlines have eroded the value of elite status to the point that it doesn’t do much to impact my choice of which airline I fly. I fly the airline that offers me the best combination of price and schedule, whether paying cash or redeeming points.
Truth be told, I don’t do much domestic travel, as a vast majority of my flying is international. That means the domestic flying that I do is often simply positioning to major gateways, and then most of my international travel is on foreign airlines.
Living in Miami, American is often the best option in terms of schedule. American flies the most places nonstop, so I’m just going to fly on American over connecting on another airline, since there’s huge convenience to flying nonstop.
Like, I’m not going to fly to the Caribbean by connecting in Atlanta with a 40-minute connection. For that matter, my most frequent domestic route is from Miami to Tampa, where competition is limited, and American has by far the best schedule.
But honestly, I’m not loyal to American, as it has probably been six months since I’ve flown through Charlotte, Dallas, or Phoenix. That should tell you everything you need to know. 😉
Next, American is often simply the best option in terms of overall value. Unlike Delta and United, American frequently opens up very reasonably priced first class awards at the last minute, and I have a sizable balance of miles.
Furthermore, much of my travel on American is using Alaska Mileage Plan miles, where I can redeem 9,000 miles for a one-way first class flight of up 700 miles, and 15,000 miles for a one-way first class flight of up 1,400 miles.
In the case of my recent severely delayed flight from New York to Miami, I booked a few weeks out, and for a convenient schedule, my options were to pay 15,000 Alaska miles for American first class, or pay $600 for a Delta first class ticket. I’ll let you guess which I chose.
So yeah, I book American when it’s the best option in terms of fare and schedule. I don’t go out of my way to fly the airline, and in all honestly, all else being equal, I’ll typically fly another airline. American is my airline of choice when it’s cheapest and/or has the best schedule, and that’s it. In other words, I’m a rational consumer. 😉
I do still pursue some status with AAdvantage
I had AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for 14 years, but I’ve finally dropped down to AAdvantage Gold as of this year. However, I’m going for status again. Not because I value it for flying American, but instead, because I really value oneworld Emerald status for all my travel on oneworld partner airlines.
I love the amazing lounges it gets me access to, plus the priority treatment. The reality is that American provides the easiest pathway to earning this status. My desire to earn that status has little to do with American, and a lot more to do with AAdvantage:
- I’m only planning on going for Platinum Pro rather than Executive Platinum, which is the lowest status that earns you oneworld Emerald
- American makes it easiest to earn elite status through credit card spending, and on top of that, I have an amazing “double dip” opportunity right now
- I still see huge value in the AAdvantage program, in terms of the value of miles for last minute domestic first class tickets, as well as for international premium cabin tickets; so AAdvantage continues to deliver in that sense, if you ask me
In the past, AAdvantage was the driving force that made me choose to fly with American. Nowadays, AAdvantage is the driving force that makes me put some spending on a co-branded card, so that I can get perks on other airlines, entirely separate from whether or not I choose to fly with American.
It’s generally not worth avoiding American
When American can just operate reliably, I don’t mind flying the airline one bit:
- American’s wide body fleet is solid, as American is the only US carrier to have direct aisle access in business class from all wide body planes
- I don’t mind American’s domestic interiors without TVs; as long as I have a stable Wi-Fi connection, I’m fine, and I kind of appreciate knowing exactly what to expect (unlike with Delta and United)
- American actually has a lot of lovely staff who remind me of better days at the carrier, but then you deal with so many people who just don’t care
Nowadays I think United is my preferred domestic carrier in first class, mainly because I appreciate the cold brew. Meanwhile I think Delta’s domestic experience is sort of overrated, especially given the huge variance in terms of the quality of the fleet. I’m not saying it’s bad, I just don’t think it’s worth going out of my way to fly it over another carrier.
What frustrates me so much about American is the extent to which the airline completely falls apart when there are irregular operations, especially when it comes to customer service. I’ve actually had a pretty good operational reliability streak with American, until recently. Go figure with my last experience, when it rains, it pours.
I think what frustrates me so much about American is that I actually like the airline, or at least am rooting for the airline and want it to succeed and be a real competitor. I’ve been flying with the airline for so long. What I find sad is that I think a little bit of effort in the right areas would go a long way to making flying with the airline more pleasant.
It seems like American management is now trying to make the airline a little more customer friendly, and I hope that trend continues. But unfortunately the past times we’ve seen that, it didn’t last long.
Bottom line
No, I’m no longer loyal to American. I fly the airline specifically when it offers the best value, in terms of price and schedule. Living in Miami, that often means that American is better than competitors. I also see value in AAdvantage specifically for the ability to redeem miles, plus the oneworld status perks. So I’m using the easiest pathway to earning oneworld Emerald status.
But that’s the extent of my “loyalty” to American. When I fly American, it’s more often than not because it’s way cheaper or more convenient, and not because of any blind loyalty I have toward the airline.
Is my approach with American unreasonable?
