Well...at least for now, it appears AA miles for Disney has been dealt a major blow...
The new specials have not made it into either AAvacations.com OR useAAmiles.com - I'm going to use my scenario above for this illustration:
8/11 - 8/15 @ Yacht Club can be booked for 241,700 AA miles on AAvacations and 266,200 AA miles on useAAmiles.com. Of course you'd take the AAvacations option so let's stick with that.
Before specials came out this room cost $2,160 so the 241,700 miles would give you a 0.89cpp valuation on your AA miles. (And while we weren't excited about that...we were
ok with it.)
NOW though, that room could be booked for $1,620 on a 25% discount BUT it's still 241,700 miles. So you're now only getting 0.67cpp value on your AA miles.
What does this all mean...I'm not really sure. It means different things to different people. It's certainly NOT a good thing. IF you were planning to book a room category or resort that offered little or no discount, you probably don't mind this too much. If you were hoping to take advantage of a discount, this is a bad thing.
For those that care, here's my conclusions:
(Let me point out that these thoughts ONLY matter to people who are chasing AA miles for Disney hotels. If you use AA miles to fly they are MUCH more valuable to you and ignore my rambling here)
- First off, AA personal cards aren't worth it for me. I didn't think they were before but with these continued issues with AA miles it makes it that much clearer. I don't need these miles to fly and my 5/24 slots are too valuable to waste on AA cards.
- As long as the multiple AA Biz offer is open, I'm hammering that all day, everyday (and what I mean by that is every 95 days)! The dummy booking offer with a $2k MSR is great. 40,000 AA miles + $200 cash from a Raise sale...YES PLEASE! I know I can always cash those AA miles at 0.4cpp for Disney or Target gift cards and I get a 10% return right off the bat for selling the gift card. Gimme a match and it makes it that much better!
- Now...I should point out that I'm having no issue hitting MSRs on other cards. I'm actually using the biz grAAvy train to slow my roll with Chase. I'm shutout of AMEX because of popups and the fact that I've gotten virtually ALL of their biz cards. Where else can I turn but Citi? If I was having to choose between CIC, CIU, CIP, CIP2, etc. and Citi Biz...I'd absolutely stick with Chase. I'm not choosing, I'm doing both, I'm having my cake and eating it too, lol.
- I'm still planning to use my stash of AA miles on Disney resorts. I'm looking at a Yacht Club / Contemporary split stay and I am NOT factoring in any discounts and think I can attain enough miles to cover my whole week. If for some reason the hotels option falls apart, I can cash out for $2,000 in Disney Gift Cards and would cover almost half of my resort cost.
I've obviously spent A LOT of time thinking about Disney Resorts with AA miles. If anybody is sitting there wandering what they should do with this whole situation, feel free to PM me.
@wendow and I have traded many a message strategizing for our respective trips and I'd say it's been beneficial to both of us.
At some point I'll get the mental energy (i.e. anger) to call AA and try to rectify this. But it seems their contract with Disney has changed and I don't expect positive results...
