For the past few years American Airlines has been sending out “Year In Review” emails to AAdvantage members right before the holidays. These emails give members “a 30,000 foot view” of their travels with American Airlines and OneWorld partners. These Year In Review summaries typically include statistics on miles flown, destinations visited, time in the air, etc. I personally look forward to these Year In Review summaries as they give me a moment to look back and think of all the incredible traveling I’ve done in the past 12 months.
Of all the year’s I’ve been doing this, 2018 was by far my favorite. I visited some incredible destinations in Europe, Asia, South American, and Australia. I flew on several different airlines through many OneWorld carrier’s home airports. This meant I got to check out lounges from Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, American, and British Airways. 2018 was a fantastic year and one that I’ll happily never forget.
2019 was a bit different. 80% of my qualifying miles came from a single mistake airfare on Cathay Pacific. From that “sale” I booked two round-trip tickets to Vietnam in both First Class and Business Class. Don’t get me wrong, I had a ton of fun taking those flights and visiting Vietnam, but it all got a bit repetitive. Likewise, I flew Cathay Pacific Premium Economy twice, once to Hong Kong for a “mileage run” and the other to take a trip with my Girlfriend to Thailand. Again, 2019 included a ton of travel, but it was almost all entirely on Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong. With that, my 2019 Year In Review isn’t quite as exciting as my 2017 or 2018 summaries although I again had an AAmazing year of travel (sorry, I couldn’t resist).
American Airlines 2019 Year In Review
As with prior “Year In Review” emails, the body of the email contained a long graphic with text overlay. The text explains how American and I have spent another year and this summary serves as a reminder of the amazing year it’s been. Interestingly American began 2017 and 2018 reviews with a “Thank You” note while this year’s simply hopes that It’s been a good year together.
At first glance this year’s review is different in that it features actual photographs instead of the graphics in prior years. I personally preferred the graphics as it made the whole thing seem a bit more fun. This theme will continue, but this year’s review seems to have been thrown together at the last minute. You’ll see what I mean in a second.
Year In Review Flight Statistics
Following the brief introduction to the Year In Review, American provides some high level statistics about time in the air, destinations visited, and award miles used. This section is headed up by two photographs of Montana and Paris, two destinations that I did not visit in 2019…
This year I spent 58 hours in the sky, visited 9 destinations, and flew around the world 3.5 times. Doing some quick math, the distance around the world is about 24,900 miles. That means I flew around 87,150 miles this year. Dividing that by 58 hours, my flights averaged 1,502 MPH… Clearly something in this above chart isn’t adding up!
Likewise, this year I used miles to fly Japan Airlines First Class twice. One of those flights cost 80,000 miles and the other cost 110,000 miles. So, in 2019 I easily redeemed over 190,000 miles for travel, which means again, these statistics seem a bit off.
Most Visited and Longest Trip Statistics
The review email continues with more photos of American Airlines planes. This time, they used the 787 instead of the 777 featured above. At this point of the review summary American claimed that my most visited destinations were New York, St. Louis, and Detroit.
Now, two of those destinations I don’t necessarily disagree with. I lived in New York for the past year and went home to St. Louis a few times. However, I only visited Detroit once in 2019… However, I went to Hong Kong about 4 times, Chicago several times, Orlando several times, etc. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how Detroit was a top-3 destinations considering I only went there once!
My longest flight however was not a surprise. The New York to Hong Kong flight was very long. I’m confused though why this would show up, but Hong Kong doesn’t show up as a destination?
My most flown aircraft type was a 737, which again isn’t surprising and I reached Executive Platinum status early in the year back on July 28.
Finally, American again lists a few cities that mean absolutely nothing to me. Perhaps American is just trying to give me ideas of overpriced destinations to burn my ever growing collection of miles in 2020.
Elite Status Benefits Earned
The next section of the review summary again included a photo of a destination that meant nothing to me; Kirkjufell, Iceland. Yes, this highlights that American now flies to Iceland, but I don’t plan to go there anytime soon…
This section continues by pointing out that I’ve earned over 100,000 extra award miles because I maintain Executive Platinum elite status. I also received more than 10 upgrades in 2019 and saved $30 on checked bag fees. Lastly, apparently all EP members have flown to the sun 109 times in 2019… that’s cool I guess?
This is where the year in review portion of the email ends and American decides to include a really odd set of voting buttons.
A ReAAlly Odd Vote
Toward the bottom of the Year In Review email is a section where AAdvantage members can “vote” on where they’d like to use their miles in 2020. The options are Krakow, Casablanca, Tel Aviv, and Budapest. All of these destinations are new to American in 2020 so I understand what the airline is trying to do.
I voted for Tel Aviv just because and when I clicked the “vote” button I was directed to the below page. The webpage included a photo of Tel Aviv and a hyperlink to check out flights to Tel Aviv with American.
The above page also noted that American will begin flying to Tel Aviv on September 9, 2020 which is quite some time in the future. We’ll see if American ends up launching these flights on time anyway…
An Opportunity To Share
Finally at the very bottom of the Year In Review email is a very short “thank you” note from American and an opportunity to share your travel via Facebook or Twitter.
When you click on either share button you’ll receive a drafted post or tweet which includes a link to the entire email graphic. This year, American remembered to exclude personal information such as your AAdvantage number.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned above, 2019 wasn’t my favorite year of travel due to the repetitiveness of destinations visited and airlines flown. I still had a great year visiting Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong, but would have liked to go to other destinations as well.
Similarly, the 2019 Year In Review email from American wasn’t my favorite either. First of all, the entire thing looked thrown together at the last minute. It’s like when you see a powerpoint presentation with cropped images thrown together on a slide; the whole thing just looked like a last-minute rush job. Likewise, the data presented was confusing. Some statistics included OneWorld partners, others didn’t. Also, some of the data directly from American was just plain wrong. All in all, it was just not a great “Year In Review” from American.
Lastly, the above reflects my year traveling with American. There is no doubt that 2019 was a tough year for the airline. There were labor disputes that caused horrible delays and cancelations throughout the network. Morale appeared to be at all time lows when interacting with airport staff and airline crew. All in all, American seems to have lost its way a bit in 2019. From all of the issues in 2019 the Airline seems to have forgotten about what matters; its customers.
I hope 2020 is a brighter year for American and hope that the airline makes customer satisfaction a priority in the upcoming year. Also, I hope the 2020 “Year In Review” is a lot better than the one presented for 2019.
