American Airlines has just announced its intention to drop minimum mileage accruals for non-elite AAdvantage members.  Here is the emailed announcement:

Dear ,

Effective January 1, 2009, we are discontinuing the minimum mileage guarantee for non-elite status members for flights on American Airlines, American Eagle^®, AmericanConnection^®, oneworld^® member airlines, AAdvantage^® participating airlines as well as rail service and codeshare service booked under an AA flight number.

With this change, customers will earn AAdvantage miles equal to the actual distance flown or the applicable percentage* of the miles flown, and any associated bonuses will be calculated accordingly. Similarly, elite status qualifying miles and points earned for travel on eligible flights will also be based on the actual miles earned. AAdvantage Executive Platinum^®, AAdvantage Platinum^® and AAdvantage Gold^® members are exempt from this change.

The new policy will apply to non-elite status members traveling on or after January 1, 2009, regardless of when the ticket was booked or purchased. Flights flown on or before December 31, 2008, will continue to accrue AAdvantage miles under the current policy. For more information, visit AA.com/AAdvantage.

Thank you for your business. We look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

Sincerely,

Rob Friedman
President
AAdvantage Marketing Programs

What does it mean?  Not a whole lot for most people.  Most flights are more than 500 miles and therefore accrue actual mileage.  For Texas based fliers to regional cities, it means you accrue actual mileage instead of a minimum.  However, most people who might be annoyed by this are actually Elite AAdvantage members and therefore *will* accrue the minimum. 

 

All in all, it’s just another mild erosion of another frequent flier program.  Some airlines have already implemented this program (US Airways for instance) and some have done so in a modified form. 

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