Award wallet is the best way to track and manage frequent flyer accounts. They let you know when your balance changes. They let you know when your flight plans change. Fees, free hotel nights, and suite upgrades are tracked by them. They let you know if the miles are close to their end.
American Airlines told Award Wallet that they can't do this with AAdvantage accounts or American reservations. Award Wallet was not a rogue actor. They had an agreement with the airline and used an application programming interface. American Airlines paid for an Award wallet to help AAdvantage members travel better.
The airline brought down the hammer, and we will all be worse off.
This is not good for security. It is the best way to protect an account. Most members don't go to their American AAdvantage account on a daily or weekly basis. It will take a long time for them to know that their account has been hacked. Award wallet will let you know before someone fraudulently redeems your tickets.
The usual arguments about security don't apply. There is a chance that we don't want account passwords stored on someone else's server. Tracking changes is good for security. The issue here is not that.
American and Award Wallet have an agreement that allows this. Award wallet is able to access data. They don't store member passwords. Award wallet members store their passwords on their own computer. There have been no allegations that Award Wallet failed to live up to its security obligations.
This isn't about security at all. This is about making money from eyeballs. American Airlines wants its members to visit its website more often.
This is not good for AAdvantage member engagement. I check my award wallet account when I need a number. I check my Award Wallet account when I need my father in law's AAdvantage number. I need to be able to log into AA.com. Members will have a harder time keeping track of their accounts when they can't find a single place to do it.
I went to aa.com to find out what miles were posted when I saw my balance change. Award wallet causes me to visit AA.com more often and I get a push notification from Award wallet every time. I don't go to the account as often when I don't know about account changes.
The American Airlines travel experience is worse now. My family went to Hawaii on American Airlines. The seat assignment on the return flight was different before I left. Award Wallet sent me an email that was the only reason I noticed this. I was moved back so that I could sit with my child. It makes life easier for my wife and I. It is good for American's other customers, who are not stuck next to a toddler.
When your bookings change most of the time, American doesn't tell you. Award Wallet performs a service for the airline that makes it easier to fly the airline, and doesn't charge American for this, even though it had to pay for its past data access.
More miles will be expiring. Award wallet lets me know when my father in law's miles are going to expire, and that allows me to keep his account active. When American ended its partnership with Alaska, he wasn't in a position to redeem flight miles for American Airlines itineraries, or credit flight miles to American.
I get warnings when multiple emails are due, that would otherwise be lost. Maybe Americans want fewer active accounts. Unlike Delta, Southwest, United and JetBlue, they still have miles left. The airline was able to borrow $10 billion against the AAdvantage program because engaged members are highly profitable.
Do members own their data? Maybe this wasn't so clear a decade ago when airlines started going after sites that helped members keep track of their accounts, balances and reservations. Current debates over Facebook and the E.U. privacy regulations show that members should own their data and be allowed to use it as they please. If I want to tell Award Wallet when I fly American Airlines, so they can help me know when my itineraries change and when my seat assignments change, that is clearly my right.
The American AAdvantage is against its members. There are a lot of Award Wallet members. A decade ago it was 300,000 to 400,000, and now a majority of members have AAdvantage accounts. American is telling hundreds of thousands of its own customers that they need to spend more time and jump through more hoops to be a customer, that the airline and frequent flyer program wants to be harder to do business with. Someone thinks that is a strategy to make more money from members.
The position American Airlines is taking is going to make the lives of members and passengers harder, and it will mean less engagement in the AAdvantage program. AAdvantage is less relevant because of this. There is a petition on change.org that wants AAdvantage to allow members to track their accounts through award wallet again.
Award wallet is still useful for tracking the major hotel programs, as well as credit card rewards programs, rental cars and your non-U.S. frequent flyer programs.
I can log in with a single click with Southwest, United and Delta accounts. They forward my itineraries and mileage balances to Award Wallet, so that they can process those accounts without access to the airline systems.
I often call out the negative things that travel providers do, but I don't do enough to acknowledge the positive things that travel providers do. Award wallet is a tool I use to track my frequent flyer account balances. They ran into intransigence a couple of years ago.
June 27, 2014).
"General"
I wrote a letter to the editor of Inside Flyer arguing that it was unreasonable for Award Wallet not to be able to track American AAdvantage account balances. In the August issue of the magazine, Randy Petersen argued that American's position was consistent with what he had said in the previous issue.
August 25, 2012
"General"
I've been a customer of American Airlines for a long time and I like them very much. American's 100,000 mile flyers are the top tier, in contrast to United's mid tier and top tier Global Services. American's top elites are clear.
February 25, 2012
"General"
