MMW & Clue,
I happen to think you are both correct! You've also summed up for folks EXACTLY the reason I helped found FFOUCS and remain active to this very day.
Time was that I didn't have status and was out amongst the great unwashed and constantly subjected to arcane rules and the whim & whimsy of PMSing gate agents who don't know the rules any better than most FF'ers do. So on boring nights on the road after the 51st viewing of a Law & Order rerun I started reading things like the "Customer Committment" pages on airline web sites, then on really boring nights I read the Contract of Carriage along with anything else I could come up with regarding airline policy & procedure. In short I became an educated consumer.
Then I took my post graduate studies at www.flyertalk.com.
By then I had CP status and my dear friend and colleague B. Ben Baldanza made aviation history as one of the brightest men I've ever met in person saying the dumbest thing I've ever heard or read and thus the birth of the Cockroaches began. Much has changed since Aug of 2002, yet much remains the same. I'd like to think FFOCUS has had a positive impact for US customers regardless of status but I'm not so sure. I know we embarrassed them into cleaning up the planes a little bit. I know they at least read what we say. Beyond that who knows. I'll end with a quick anecdote from one of the few flights I've taken from ABE. I was early and the aircraft was a little late so the G/A and I struck up a conversation and she noticed my CP status and remarked, "Oh you must really like US Airways?" Poor lady was shocked at my reply, I said, "NO! I hate you less than all of the other carriers" sadly that is still my opinion, just that now I have more evidence to support my comment.
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