American Airlines will be ending its AirPass program, which is a move I’m kind of surprised by…
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American AirPass program ends November 30, 2022
The American Airlines AirPass program has been around for many years, and allows travelers to essentially pre-purchase travel at fixed costs. This has been available to both individuals and businesses, and is intended to help with managing travel costs.
You could book at the last minute, and easily change travel plans. It even offered extra perks, ranging from Admirals Club access, to premium seating. If you deposited enough money you could get instant elite status, ranging from AAdvantage Gold status for $10,000, to AAdvantage Executive Platinum status for $30,000. Heck, if you pre-purchased roughly $50,000 worth of travel, you could even get invitation-only Concierge Key status.
There’s an interesting update to the program, as reported by View from the Wing. As of November 30, 2022, American is no longer selling AirPass memberships. Existing memberships won’t be renewed either, and existing members can spend down their balances or request refunds.
Meanwhile those who had purchased a lifetime AirPass membership will continue to have that honored, since anything else wouldn’t be fair.
I’m curious what American’s motivation here is?
I find American eliminating the AirPass program to be an interesting move. Purchasing travel through AirPass most definitely wasn’t cheap, but the intent was that it was a good way to manage travel costs by always knowing in advance what you’d pay.
With that in mind, I’m curious what American’s motivation is for eliminating AirPass?
- Has interest in the program just dwindled over the years, and not many people were signing up anymore?
- Does American just prefer to negotiate individual corporate contracts, and found that the program wasn’t profitable, even with fares through AirPass being pretty high?
- With American having eliminated change fees on most ticket types, was the fundamental value proposition of the program (flexibility) not there like before?
Bottom line
American is eliminating the AirPass program, so no new memberships are being issued anymore, and those with existing memberships can either spend their existing balance or get a refund. AirPass was never cheap, but was intended to give people consistent pricing.
What do you make of American eliminating AirPass?
Business travel is slow if not dead.
Airlines have to now focus on other things
If the stop selling AirPass, businesses will have to buy regular fare tix - why give the tix without change fees - didn't ever seem to make sense fir non-discretionary travel.
A dime is a dime and airlines know all the scams to get them. I went from lovig to despising them.
It would have been amazing to buy a $60k Airpass last week to get CK and now eligible for a full refund.
"Those who had purchased a lifetime AirPass membership will continue to have that honored, since anything else wouldn’t be fair."
I doubt AA is concerned about fairness here. It would be a breach of contract and cost them A LOT of money.
Strange move but perhaps another nail in the coffin for AA being considered a premium business travel airline (next to eliminating first class, getting rid of first on trascon, removing onboard tv screens). AAirpass has been an incredibly convenient way of traveling for work - last minute changes and cancellations have been possible with no fees, and there are massive discounts on businesses and first class fares, especially for transcon and international travel. This is...
Strange move but perhaps another nail in the coffin for AA being considered a premium business travel airline (next to eliminating first class, getting rid of first on trascon, removing onboard tv screens). AAirpass has been an incredibly convenient way of traveling for work - last minute changes and cancellations have been possible with no fees, and there are massive discounts on businesses and first class fares, especially for transcon and international travel. This is something you really do not see or can have an appreciation of unless your employer is a member of the program.
Many corporates might drop AA unless there is an alternative solution (having said that - just imagine managing this on contract by contract basis). Sad to see the continued decline of AA.
Lucky, it's AAirpass, not Airpass
I stand corrected, they changed it to Airpass
Maybe that was what did it in. Losing the brAAnding
Interesting day for AA program changes.... AA never really promoted/marketed Airpass aggressively, which I always found confounding. You'd think there would/could have been a lot of breakage on already high fares had there been a better marketing/sales proposition for it (connecting it to the Business Extra program, for example).