The Holy Grail - 100% Share Promo Coming???

[burmans]

Has anyone had issues signing on in the last couple of days? I seemed to have an issue last night with a couple of our family accounts which sometimes worked, sometimes didn't, all OK today. Is this something anyone else has experienced?

 

[bcworld]

Has anyone had issues signing on in the last couple of days? I seemed to have an issue last night with a couple of our family accounts which sometimes worked, sometimes didn't, all OK today. Is this something anyone else has experienced?

I had an issue where I plugged in perfectly valid details for a share transaction and it told me the account did not exist. When I reversed the order of the sharing with exactly the same account numbers etc it was fine.

 

[Alanslegal]

It wont sign in using my username however it works when using the div number... This is for my and +1 accounts.

 

[burmans]

Thanks all, seems to be OK now. Perhaps their system was just being hammered with people sharing last night and this has dropped off dramatically with latest news.

 

[thehound]

Thanks all, seems to be OK now. Perhaps their system was just being hammered with people sharing last night and this has dropped off dramatically with latest news.

Am I missing something about their changes to redemptions? I understand that the only change to the oneworld chart has been redemptions between US/Canada and North Asia. With this change alone, and the odds being that not many Australians are using USDM for flights from the US Airways chart (which did get changed a bit), why would the desire to get more miles have "dropped off dramatically with the latest news"?

I'm going to share some miles with my wife so just want to make sure I'm not missing something critical you've spotted burmans.

 

[rjh666]

As a data point - the first sharing transaction I tried took 24 hours to process, but the transfer back occurred immediately...

 

[bcworld]

Am I missing something about their changes to redemptions? I understand that the only change to the oneworld chart has been redemptions between US/Canada and North Asia. With this change alone, and the odds being that not many Australians are using USDM for flights from the US Airways chart (which did get changed a bit), why would the desire to get more miles have "dropped off dramatically with the latest news"?

I'm going to share some miles with my wife so just want to make sure I'm not missing something critical you've spotted burmans.

There's nothing to spot now, but the message is there could be tomorrow with zero notice.

However, miles bought at $0.01++ are almost devaluation proof!

I mean, if they turned around tomorrow and said, we're moving to the AA award chart...and Aus to HKG is going up from 35k to 50k...I'd still bite their hand off!

 

[burmans]

why would the desire to get more miles have "dropped off dramatically with the latest news"?

Well perhaps most obviously US is a US airline, and Australian redemptions are at best a small % of US frequent flyers. In the US, however whereas 24 hours ago every blog was banging on about how great this was and everyone should be in on it, in particular the 90K US to North Asia redemption, this is the very redemption thats been hit with chart changes and the blogs (and the comments) are now running considerably more negative.

Whether I agree with this is quite a different issue, humans are emotional creatures and make emotional decisions. Personally yes, on a rational basis it wont be stopping me buying but I strongly suspect it has given many (particularly those new to this, e.g. many blog readers fall into this category) reason to pause on sharing.

Oh and bcworld has encapsulated one of those concerns. I am more aligned with his second paragraph than his first, not that I think they wont devalue (they almost certainly will align US and AA within the next year) but given AA/US "excuse" for not giving notice was that they wanted to "package" the changes and do them together in one big hit I believe they have had their go and next changes is now a few months off. Only time will tell, some here are noticeable more negative, but I have to feel some of these are consistently negative over a long period of time, if you listened to them 1-2 years ago you would have missed out a lot in the meantime!

 

[dalereardon]

Does anyone want to share to me and I can share back? My wife and I have accounts that will be old enough on the final day.

Thanks,

Dale.

 

[Alanslegal]

US/AA has set a precedent that they are ready, willing and able to devalue the program at any time of their choosing and without notice, that is my concern. Just because they have devalued some awards, affecting primarily flights between America and North Asia .... there is nothing holding them back now that can affect us flyers departing Australia.

 

[burmans]

US/AA has set a precedent that they are ready, willing and able to devalue the program at any time of their choosing and without notice, that is my concern. Just because they have devalued some awards, affecting primarily flights between America and North Asia .... there is nothing holding them back now that can affect us flyers departing Australia.

Yes this clearly a risk but the fact that you are aware of the risk today doesn't mean it did not exist yesterday or the week before or more likely.

Plenty of airlines and hotel programs devalue and in many cases with much or any notice. And then we get this commentary about how they could do it at any time, we've heard commentary on Lifemiles devaluing again for two years now. In fact we've heard commentary on US devaluing for a similar time. But there is no real evidence that a devaluation in itself, makes another one more likely despite insistence by the "commentators" on some programs (e.g. LifeMiles) that this was the case.

 

[whole-lotta-moxie]

There's nothing to spot now, but the message is there could be tomorrow with zero notice.

However, miles bought at $0.01++ are almost devaluation proof!

I mean, if they turned around tomorrow and said, we're moving to the AA award chart...and Aus to HKG is going up from 35k to 50k...I'd still bite their hand off!

Hi BCWorld, you are always insightful but I am a little confused on 2 of your points.

I have looked up the US Airways chart and I'm not sure I can see that redemption. From Aust to HK - Isn't that South Pacific (Aust) to North Asia? That is 90,000 points in Business class. I think I am missing something here or from reading other posts maybe the way you got the 35K or the 50K points value is from doing the stop over and final destination thing???

The other question is I want to make sure that my maths is correct if I purchase points now (the 100% bonus) the 35k to get to Hong Kong would actually cost me $350 to get to Hong Kong or if its 50k it would cost $500. Are my calculations correct?

 

[burmans]

Hi BCWorld, you are always insightful but I am a little confused on 2 of your points.

I have looked up the US Airways chart and I'm not sure I can see that redemption. From Aust to HK - Isn't that South Pacific (Aust) to North Asia? That is 90,000 points in Business class. I think I am missing something here or from reading other posts maybe the way you got the 35K or the 50K points value is from doing the stop over and final destination thing???

The other question is I want to make sure that my maths is correct if I purchase points now (the 100% bonus) the 35k to get to Hong Kong would actually cost me $350 to get to Hong Kong or if its 50k it would cost $500. Are my calculations correct?

I think you'll find bcworlds paragraph 3 was a hypothetical!

 

[Alanslegal]

Yes this clearly a risk but the fact that you are aware of the risk today doesn't mean it did not exist yesterday or the week before or more likely.

Plenty of airlines and hotel programs devalue and in many cases with much or any notice. And then we get this commentary about how they could do it at any time, we've heard commentary on Lifemiles devaluing again for two years now. In fact we've heard commentary on US devaluing for a similar time. But there is no real evidence that a devaluation in itself, makes another one more likely despite insistence by the "commentators" on some programs (e.g. LifeMiles) that this was the case.

Look I agree with you and realise that any program degradation is possible. Its just a concern and as long as we are aware of the risk - nothing in life is risk free - that's all that matters. Will it hold me back from buying/sharing points for the time being, definitely not.

 

[bcworld]

I think you'll find bcworlds paragraph 3 was a hypothetical!

And it was a reference to the current AA award chart, SWP - Asia 1 being 35k oneway in J.

 

[bcworld]

Look I agree with you and realise that any program degradation is possible. Its just a concern and as long as we are aware of the risk - nothing in life is risk free - that's all that matters. Will it hold me back from buying/sharing points for the time being, definitely not.

There is some irony about the US devaluation, to the small extent that it has happened, and the LifeMiles one. In both cases those routes targeted seem to be ones which are commonly 'mis-used' and where much time is spent on forums crowing about tricks associated with them! As for LifeMiles upping the cost of copay, I never had an issue with that, I don't think they even document the costs anywhere anyway and have always used a mysterious sliding scale.

With these devals the main victims are those invested in AA with a long term view to explorer awards...I had certainly done my research on these and if my US stockpile ever sweeps to AA it would've been something I would've seriously considered.

 

[burmans]

There is some irony about the US devaluation, to the small extent that it has happened, and the LifeMiles one. In both cases those routes targeted seem to be ones which are commonly 'mis-used' and where much time is spent on forums crowing about tricks associated with them! As for LifeMiles upping the cost of copay, I never had an issue with that, I don't think they even document the costs anywhere anyway and have always used a mysterious sliding scale.

With these devals the main victims are those invested in AA with a long term view to explorer awards...I had certainly done my research on these and if my US stockpile ever sweeps to AA it would've been something I would've seriously considered.

Yes, I think the biggest irony here is that many (here and on FT) have been worried is that US would be devalued by bringing it more in line with AA, but the latest devaluations have hit AA more than US. If anything the AA devalauation combined with the current share promo should be regarded as an opportunity to buy/burn points before the inevitable occurs.

 

[anat0l]

There is some irony about the US devaluation, to the small extent that it has happened, and the LifeMiles one. In both cases those routes targeted seem to be ones which are commonly 'mis-used' and where much time is spent on forums crowing about tricks associated with them!

Not sure about "mis-used", but North America to North Asia via Europe (stopover) at 90k for Business was damn well lucrative indeed! I think that was touted quite a lot, and wouldn't be surprised that, due to the difficulty in locating TATL premium availability, it might have easily been a boon for those who operate an award finding service.

I'm sure that kind of routing broke an MPM here or there. The other advantage was that 90k was extremely easy to get, viz. one buy promotion and it was in the bag like that *clicks fingers*. For us in Australia, notwithstanding GUM tricks, you usually needed two promotions to get the mileage required for a good award.

 

[k_sheep]

Yet another request of a swapping friend - I was going to swap with mr k_sheep, but apparently I never set up his USDM account, just an AA one Oops!

 

[burmans]

Yet another request of a swapping friend - I was going to swap with mr k_sheep, but apparently I never set up his USDM account, just an AA one Oops!

There may yet be a next time if 3 promos in 6.5 months is anything to go by!