I wrote a post about AA Forces Award Wallet to Discontinue Extension earlier today.
A couple of hours ago I received an e-mail from Alan Phillips of Weber Shandwick, the PR firm for American Airlines.
Mr. Phillips wrote to me responding to my post regarding AA and the Award Wallet extension.
I did not expect to get a response from AA regarding Award Wallet when I made my post but am really glad that I did. I’d say that pretty much everyone is taking sides with Award Wallet so why not hear AA’s thoughts on this matter. It’s always nice to hear both sides to a story!
Here is the e-mail:
Hello Michael,
I saw this post “http://michaelwtravels.
I want to provide you with American’s perspective on this topic. This is attributable to American Airlines or an American Airlines spokesperson.
· Upholding its long-held stance on how third-party websites access proprietary AAdvantage member details is just one of the ways American protects the benefits afforded through the AAdvantage program.
· Because travelers’ AAdvantage account numbers and passwords can be used to claim AAdvantage mileage awards out of their accounts and access personal details, American will always protect this information.
· Security is chief among our points of consideration when we make decisions regarding the sharing of our customers’ data with third-party websites
· We simply cannot permit websites that have not satisfied our security requirements the access needed to track AAdvantage balances or any other function that is otherwise secured behind AA.com login credentials.
· Consistent with these principles, it is worth noting that Points.com, an AAdvantage participant, allows many of the same types of services as other mileage tracker websites – but has fully satisfied our rigorous security requirements.
· We are also in the process of qualifying a number of other mileage tracker websites.
Best,
Alan
Mr. Phillips is making a case for AA using protection and security as the reasons why Award Wallet can not be allowed to track our AAdvantage accounts.
If this is a real concern and issue then I am fine with AA’s stance regarding this. My AA miles are definitely valuable and pretty much as good as money to me. I just wonder why other airlines are not concerned about the security of our accounts. Why is United,Delta & US Airways (among others) still being tracked on Award Wallet? Are their sites more secure than AA?
I sent a couple of questions back to Mr. Phillips and am waiting for a response.
I’d like to know what other mileage tracking sites are in the process of being qualified by AA?
I would also like to know if making money from tracking sites is an issue? If Award Wallet was able to pay a fee, would they be allowed to track our accounts?
I would also like to know if making money from tracking sites is an issue? If Award Wallet was able to pay a fee, would they be allowed to track our accounts?
Mr Phillips response to not allowing “websites” that do not meet their security standard is fair, I don’t like it but it’s fair. However, I don’t buy his security nonsense on the AwardWallet browser extension since it’s not a website.
Hi, this is Alexi from AwardWallet. I just wanted to point out one important thing – AwardWallet (a third party website) is not accessing aa.com and is not storing any data related to AA in our database. With the browser extension it is the user who is accessing their site via their own browser and all the data is stored in that browser so it never reaches our server at any point.
Alexi- thanks for responding to this post. I am glad that both sides of the story are being presented to the public.
There is a lot of interest regarding this situation.