A million miles and all I got was a stupid piece of paper.

[USFlyer]

I don't get a chance to fly Northwest very often, but I did a few months ago, and I flew a 1.5 hour flight, in First Class, and I was shocked when we were served a hot meal on such a short flight (delicious too). It was a nice experience.

I love NW. My trips are usually DCA-SEA. When I fly DCA-MSP-SEA and SEA-MSP-DCA, I usually get two meals in both directions since both legs have meals. On US, I don't think either would have a meal.

 

[WCT]

Piney, I think that is wonderful the flight attendant went out of his way to thank you. Sometimes, we truly forget the pax's like yourself that pay our salaries. I would love to be able to comp all my elite members, but sometimes there are dozens in the back, even in middle seats, crazy! But a Thank You goes a long way.

 

[Doc]

Loyalty Programs are P-R-O-F-I-T C-E-N-T-E-R-S That's why!

And here's the real kicker. What does it cost an airline to confer lifetime status to someone who:

Earns CP status anyway?

Or changes jobs and no longer fly at all?

If you knew how the upgrades work you'd know that if this customer was a lifetime CP who now only flew once and awhile would be last on the CP upgrade list unless they flew on Y & B Fares or other more expensive fare classes in which case everybody wins.

The airline executives have a large percentage of airline employees bamboozled into thinking Frequent Flyers are a bunch of freeloading, perk grubbing little whores that need to be purged post haste. If that were really the case do you think we'd see nearly EVERY airline have a loyalty program???

It must be the heat in AZ baking brains.

Sorry to be so late with a reply.
A very low percent of fliers fly on Y or B fares...and the ones that do are not CP's

 

[BoeingBoy]

A very low percent of fliers fly on Y or B fares...and the ones that do are not CP's

Assuming the second part is true, your statement does nothing to dispute PB's point - which is that giving lifetime elite status for flying 1 million miles costs the company virtually nothing.

Jim

 

[mrman]

Chill out there, Mr. Center-of-the-Universe. My post/question wasn't even directed at you.




I understand your point of view. (I disagree that ALL FFers, just by virtue of them flying a lot, "pay the bills period." Some FFers who just pay the lowest fares out there probably do not "pay the bills." But that is a different topic, and for purposes of this conversation, I agree that many higher-yielding FFers do pay the bills.)

Not sure what the rest of your ranting post had to do with the topic at hand, but my point is this:

Is someone who racks up a lot of miles and points by doing things other than flying really and necessarily among the most valued customers of an airline? I would posit no, because that customer is not giving the airline a lot of revenue to actually fly. I understand the airline gets some revenue from that customer through the FF program, but I would think the more valued customer would be the one who gives the airline more revenue from actually flying than from using a certain credit card to buy underwear at JC Penney.

Apparently I have struck a nerve though.

Actually your wrong. The FF programs are a high revenue business unit for the airlines. The airline makes more selling miles to CC, car rental and flowers. So the person that makes 1 MM on CC is a very valuable customer. But then US has cut back on flying/upgrade opportunities, so many of the customers are moving to UA, AA WN where redeption is more likely

 

[US1YFARE]

Sorry to be so late with a reply.
A very low percent of fliers fly on Y or B fares...and the ones that do are not CP's

This is completely false. I knew plenty of US1's that flew on Y and B fares. I would estimate that at least 90% of the fares I flew on were Y, B, or A fares. These are still the fares I fly on--just on airlines other than US. What you may be seeing is the result of what happened when the boobs in Tempe took over--they took away the bonuses associated with flying on Y and B fares. Why buy a Y or B fare when you don't even get the bonuses every other carrier gives for paying such high fares. I still can't believe that the $1000 fare US is charging for PHL-BOS-PHL is non-refundable and not a Y or B fare....

 

[sfb]

To me at least it's no surprise that airlines are always in trouble money wise. It's one of the only industries that has lower customer satisfaction ratings than the IRS. Frankly it's a well earned reputation. For Companies that consistently lose money the level of arrogance is both amazing and appalling. Yet the one consistently profitable airline pays the highest wages, delivers superior DOT stats and is widely recognized as a great place to work. The former CEO credits this to of all things HUMILITY

H-U-M-I-L-I-T-Y, attention to detail and focusing on employees and customers seem to be the secret to nearly 35 years of uninterupted profits and a high ROI for shareholders. Sounds like a winning proposition to me, but it can't be put on a spreadsheet, quantified on a daily basis, so the MBA crowd doesn't know what to do with it. Leadership is hard to value until you wake up and find out you don't have any.

So, I don't want to be part of the "pile on Piney" crowd because frankly I agree with him about what's wrong with the US product. However, when you praise "Brand S" and the way it does business, but continue to preferentially purchase "Brand U" even though you continue to be vocally disappointed with the "Brand U" product, the only conclusion is that "Brand U" still isn't bad enough to make you change brand loyalty. And you find it too inconvenient to switch to "Brand C" because it makes your travel times longer.

The only way the message can/will get across eventually is if the company fails to continue to get by with its shoddy product. In spite of the reservations system fiasco, dirty planes, downgraded (or unavailable on RJ's) first class, devalued loyalty program, baggage issues, etc., US still gets a revenue premium of 30-50% in identical short-haul markets from PHL over WN. They even do about 25% better on PHL-PHX. I guess the product isn't bad enough to make people switch to alternatives yet. They haven't yet had the vision that Gordon Bethune & Co. had to understand that you can get some of the public to pay more for a better product -- and that they simply weren't competitive long term with a cheap, unattractive product because other airlines were able to produce a similar product more cheaply. I think Delta's shift in its philosophy and marketing as they've come out of bankruptcy is similar -- and they've seen their RASM improve to close to industry average.

As others have said, giving just a piece of paper for million miler status is pretty dumb. Offering recognition like lifetime Silver status is pretty cheap given that probably 90% or more of million milers are continuing to earn higher statuses every year -- and for someone who doesn't fly as much anymore, they're not going to be getting many upgrades as a result.

But then management at US does seem to be eager to step over dollars to pick up pennies. If they want to cut miles awarded for short-haul segments, do it on the lowest two or three fare classes. Give people bonus miles for buying Y & B fares since those are the ones that bring in the big bucks -- and they're pretty darned close to the F fares anyhow.