Complaints from Chp Mbrs/Preferred flyers

[TomBascom]

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Letting elite passengers fly standby for free would cost $100 (in terms of marginal revenue), and that's about 10 times the cost of a free ticket. Forget it!
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It wouldn't cost anything. It's an empty seat.

You seem to think that the $100 stand-by charge is a gimmee. That people are just falling all over themselves to pay it -- but the reality is somewhat different. In a situation where a customer might desire to stand-by there are a number of possibilities:

1) The customer knows the rules, agrees with them and is happy to pay for the opportunity. Revenue to US Airways = $100. Yippee!

2) The customer knows the rules and deplores them. Grudgingly pays. Revenue to US Airways = $100. Loss of goodwill, unknown but real.

3) The customer knows the rules and deplores them. Won't pay. Revenue to US Airways = $0. Loss of goodwill, unknown but real.

4) The customer knows the rules and deplores them. Won't pay. Schemes to get around rules. Revenue to US Airways = $0. Loss of goodwill, unknown but real. Employee time burned in defeating schemes, substantial.

5) Unhappy customer looks for alternative airlines with better schedules, or more flexible terms. Loss of customer. Most businesses consider that bad.

Does anyone know:

1) What the stand-by rate was prior to Black Tuesday?

2) What the stand-by rate is today?

3) How many stand-by coupons are being sold?

4) How the bump rate has changed in the same periods?

My guess is that the stand-by rate has fallen somewhat, that very few coupons are being sold, that the number of coupons does not match the number of stand-bys and that bumps have increased at least in part due to fewer seats having been opened by voluntary stand-bys. But I have no data, only informal observation.

 

[deelmakur]

I don't understand all the postulating about whether they will modify the fee structure. These are no longer transaction fees, designed to cover the true cost of changing a booking in a CRS, or whatever. They have become budgeted line items, and they project what they will bring in each year. They live on them. The only thing that might cause a change is if they decide the policy is hurting cash flow. By that I mean, even though the same number of people buy the same number of tickets, now that they know there is a fee (or replacement charge for a new one) associated with buying, and possibly changing that ticket, they may not buy as early as they used to. Thus, an unintended consequence of these rules might turn out to be reduced cash in the door, as tickets get bought closer to actual travel. That would mean more borrowing. They would change the rules before they incur more interest expense.

 

[TomBascom]

The stand-by fee is brand new. They can't have gotten to the point of counting on it yet. I doubt they even know how many they've collected.

They might someday realize that anticipation of junk fees is preventing some people from buying tickets from them. I'm not holding my breath on that...

 

[KCFlyer]

JS - Why the change of heart on your part? In past discussions about SWA, you consistently pointed out that one could stand by for no charge on another airline, yet SWA made you upgrade to full fare? Now you seem to be saying that rules is rules. Nevermind that the difference between one way full coach and a discount fare on SWA is less than a hundred bucks on many routes. I, like Tom, wonder if those $100 stand by coupon books are selling like hotcakes. My guess is - no they aren't.

 

[avek00]

The standby issue has already been settled. With one exception, the majors have closed a loophole that was long exploited by savvy travelers to get on the most desirable at less than the asking price. I'm all for receiving the greatest amount of bennies possible as a customer, but it simply doesn't make good business sense for most of the majors to offer free standby to deep discount tix.

 

[TomBascom]

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On 11/16/2002 941 PM avek00 wrote:

The standby issue has already been settled. With one exception, the majors have closed a loophole that was long exploited by savvy travelers to get on the most desirable at less than the asking price. I'm all for receiving the greatest amount of bennies possible as a customer, but it simply doesn't make good business sense for most of the majors to offer free standby to deep discount tix.
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Huh?

Stand-by is a gamble. If it works then great. But there's no garantee that it'll work. It would never make sense to buy a ticket for a flight that you aren't prepared to fly on on the assumption that you'd be able to take a more desireable flight. There's nothing savvy about a move like that.

Nor do you get the benefit while paying less than the asking price. So far as I've ever noticed virtually all of U's flights on a route are the same price all day long. If I can buy a ticket on the route it doesn't matter if I buy it for the 7pm flight or the 9pm flight -- it's the same price. And if one of those flights is sold out when I'm buying my ticket I'm sure as heck not going to be planning on exploiting stand-by to get on the sold-out flight.

Stand-by is a no-cost feel good benefit that helps the airline operationally and which builds goodwill with the customer. It allows people to make voluntary changes to itineraries if space is available freeing up a seat that may very well be sold for revenue or used instead of bumping someone. Why should the airline care if the person giving up that seat paid $1 or $2,000 for the ticket? The seat they're moving into is earning $0.

And another thing -- these deep discounts are a line of bull. First of all the policy applies to a lot of tickets that are a long, long ways from cheap. The only thing that they're discounted from is an insane fare that nobody buys to start with. Second even the supposedly cheap tickets that the airlines bemoan all day long are largely profitable. Use their own data re: CASM and figure it out for yourself -- other than a few hard to get and harder to use loss leaders most discount tickets are either profitable or should be pretty darned near it. And if you follow the airlines reasoning behind having multiple fares on the same route and look at the whole plane full of people rather than individual tickets it makes even less sense.

Don't feel sorry for the poor airlines -- they wouldn't know good business if it bit them on the nose. In fact when an airline claims to be doing something out of a sense of good business the first thing you should do is double check the security of your wallet. The second thing should be to immediately make sure that your own business has no such practice in place.

 

[CPRich]

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On 11/14/2002 6:51:27 AM ITRADE wrote:

If I were going to be snide, my answer back to the US1s and US2s would be in the form of a rhetorical quesiton:

"What's your upgrade success rate in comparison to AA or UA?" You'll get nothing but dead silence.
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And my answer, as a 5-year CP/Top500 flyer would be: about 10-20% of my US flights, about 80% of my CO flight on my comped Platinum status. That's about all I've flown in the last 2 years.

Other questions?

btw- the anti-customer policies went into place just as my regular/predictable travel patterns changed into last-minute, continually changing plans. US got my $400 flights over 2 years, but only 1 of my 10 B/Y fares over the last couple of months. I even flew a DL connection through ATL last week rather that a US direct. Just in case anyone was tracking whether pi*&^ing off your best customers was a successful revenue enhancing strategy, you can add one data point to the 'No' column.

 

[deelmakur]

Ditto CPRich. This upgrade thing on US is perverse. Everybody and their brother seems to walk around with 0007's, and it's down to US1's pulling US20's to make sure they can get up front. Couple that with smaller planes on long haul (eg: SEA all 319's), F for full Y, and so on, and that advantage people think is there for high milers is baloney. The US20 is the real enemy. Anybody can use them, and they deplete the G bucket. As a US1, I can pull a US20 for a 4 segment transcon, and after my mileage bonus, the net cost is 8000 miles. Other folks can work that out as well. I have moved the majority of my flying to CO and AS. Both comped top tier (actually, I'm Infinite on CO). No comparison on meals and ease of using the system, especially the ATO's. CO wins hands down. Why do I continue to post over here if I left? I was a US1 since the inception of the program. Over 3 million lifetime miles. The unwarranted attack on customers who never did anything but use the system as it was offered, never screwed with back to backs or phony bonus registrations, and never took an upgrade seat the company could have sold for cash, pissed me off, and I want people to know it.

 

[drifterreno]

Excuse me but have things also changed that when a schedule change effects a pax flight cannot they then still travel day before or after if fare is basis code is available on another flight without upgrade fee?? Did I miss something here??

 

[drifterreno]

I was totally shocked today when I made a reservation on AA for a client and he asked about upgrading. Suprise Suprise Suprise, from day of ticketing I can upgrade him for 30,000 miles round trip. No 3 day before and low milage to upgrade--and he's not preferred on AA.

 

[deelmakur]

I don't want to go off message here, but I do want to respond. A customer who flys tens of thousands of miles a year should not have their upgrade opportunities reduced by someone who, not having made that investment, can do so with a US20, obtained with miles they may have gotten from a credit card program, or via other non flying activities. For one thing, permitting that to exist undermines the intent of the loyalty program, which can't help the company.

 

[CS-pro]

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On 11/19/2002 415 PM drifterreno wrote:

I was totally shocked today when I made a reservation on AA for a client and he asked about upgrading. Suprise Suprise Suprise, from day of ticketing I can upgrade him for 30,000 miles round trip. No 3 day before and low milage to upgrade--and he's not preferred on AA.
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Is this in comparison to U's longtime existing US and Canada 20,000 award booking anytime ahead on restricted fares for any flyer, whether dm or not? Whats the big deal? Is this a brand new award for AA? If so why are they behind the times?

 

[jcrb]

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The US20 is the real enemy. Anybody can use them, and they deplete the G bucket.
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The US20 is NOT the enemy, when I take the family on a trip or want to send a relative somewhere and I want to PLAN on them going in first the US20 is great. You beef with them is that they can deplete the whole upgrade inventory. Ok so tweak the inventory but don't do away with the US20. I think this problem is very city, route or flight specific as there are plent of people who have reported very good upgrade success (for me as a GP maybe ~80% so far as a CP 100%) and then there are those with very poor success. So it is definitely not a general problem.

 

[jcrb]

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A customer who flys tens of thousands of miles a year should not have their upgrade opportunities reduced by someone who, not having made that investment....

For one thing, permitting that to exist undermines the intent of the loyalty program, which can't help the company.
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Well I don't know what BofA has to pay US for those credit card miles, but US has in effect been paid for the miles that get used for the US20.

It seems as if the real issue is to simply not let US20s consume the entire upgrade inventory? That way everyone can be made happy.

Doing away with the US20 would also have a negative loyalty effect because as I said they are realy a stand out feature of the US FF program. The ability to use them to PLAN an upgraded flight long in advance (think taking elderly relatives, birthday/ special occasion gifts, etc) is just way to useful. Also reducing (somewhat) the amount of inventory that could be claimed by US20's would not defeat the forward planning use of the US20.... you would just have to look around for a flight which still had some G inventory left, while making sure that CPs didn't feel that they were not being taken care of properly.