UA to discontinue minimum 500 mile award

[gaucho99]

United announced today they will no longer offer a minimum 500 miles on a flight. I asume this is to coordinate with US for the merger.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,...Fprogramchanges

 

[Coffee_Tea_Or_Me]

Let the official declassing of UAL begin! Next press release: United to eliminate TED, Economy Plus, and glassware on all domestic flights.

I have a hunch if this is such a great idea and really saves that much money, AA, CO, DL/NW are not far behind on this same decision.

 

[Harry Callahan]

United announced today they will no longer offer a minimum 500 miles on a flight. I asume this is to coordinate with US for the merger.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,...Fprogramchanges

Bingo

 

[ual777fan]

Let the official declassing of UAL begin! Next press release: United to eliminate TED, Economy Plus, and glassware on all domestic flights.

I have a hunch if this is such a great idea and really saves that much money, AA, CO, DL/NW are not far behind on this same decision.

I'm not sure that getting rid of TED would be seen as "declassing" United Airlines. In fact, it would probably be seen as the opposite. TED isn't popular with the frequent flyers.

 

[Cosmo]

I'm not sure that getting rid of TED would be seen as "declassing" United Airlines. In fact, it would probably be seen as the opposite. TED isn't popular with the frequent flyers.

That depends upon what, if anything, would replace Ted.

 

[jimntx]

As it has been proven time and time again that the great majority of FF miles at all airlines are never used, I fail to see what eliminating the 500 mile minimum will accomplish other than making the most FFers mad. Do miles expire at United? As I never used mine at AA since I can non-rev, I just lost almost 20,000 miles because they expired.

 

[Art at ISP]

Most airlines do expire miles after 18 months if there is no activity on the account. I occasionally throw car rental mileage to the airlines I no longer fly, just to extend the 18 month moving target, if you will.

Jim, I agree with you--all the removal of the 500 mile minimum will accomplish is to tick off very frequent travelers. Ironically, this move actually will mostly affect those who pay the highest prices and provide highest yield, so I don't know what there is to be gained by doing it, other than to possibly align with the US mistake.

It just goes to show you stupid is as stupid does.

 

[FWAAA]

Jim, I agree with you--all the removal of the 500 mile minimum will accomplish is to tick off very frequent travelers. Ironically, this move actually will mostly affect those who pay the highest prices and provide highest yield, so I don't know what there is to be gained by doing it, other than to possibly align with the US mistake.

It just goes to show you stupid is as stupid does.

Agreed. Only two of the six legacies managed to post negative operating cash flow last quarter, US and UA. Only seems right that they'd be the two leaders of this dismal enhancement.

 

[LD3]

Lets say for the sake of argument that all the other airlines follow, will they be flamed like US & UA?

 

[jimntx]

Probably not. In every endeavor, it's the "pioneers" that get dumped on.

 

[whlinder]

Obviously it blows for travellers. I can't imagine the reduced future mileage liability is really going to make a huge difference to UA's bottom line. The problem is that miles are used to measure loyalty and customer value, instead of dollars or number of flights. So my guess is it attempts to better measure customer value. UA can't scrap the whole bad system and start measuring solely on $$$, but they can tweak it. What I think they are after is connecting flights. RIC-IAD-SFO or SMF-SFO-JFK, journeys like that which (as a roundtrip) provide 1000 more status miles than the nonstop and more expensive IAD-SFO or SFO-JFK. Much easier to rack up miles like that out of a spoke and fares are generally cheaper. Total mileage flown is a much better indicator for those types of flights. So IMHO what UA should have done was keep the 500 mile min for non-connecting journeys (IAD-LGA, SFO-LAX for example) and ditch it for connecting ones with one exception: for connecting journeys with both legs under 500 miles, the longest of the two flights gets bumped up to 500 miles. But all of that is confusing to customers and probably way too hard for UA's meager IT resources to figure out, thus the 500 mile min is gone.

 

[Itestwell]

Most airlines do expire miles after 18 months if there is no activity on the account. I occasionally throw car rental mileage to the airlines I no longer fly, just to extend the 18 month moving target, if you will.

Jim, I agree with you--all the removal of the 500 mile minimum will accomplish is to tick off very frequent travelers. Ironically, this move actually will mostly affect those who pay the highest prices and provide highest yield, so I don't know what there is to be gained by doing it, other than to possibly align with the US mistake.

It just goes to show you stupid is as stupid does.

In my opinion (not worth much), this has nothing to do with a merger. It has to do with the SOARING cost of doing business in today's environment, and airlines are looking at any way they can to conserve. It amazes me how many people take these things so painfully personally. Fuel is at $122/bbl, and people still feel that the airlines simply "don't care"? To me, one word comes to mind: survival.

No worries, the other carriers will follow, just like the pretzels, the $25 bag, etc, that people *blasted* USAir for a few short months ago. Hate to say I told ya so.....

 

[mrman]

In my opinion (not worth much), this has nothing to do with a merger. It has to do with the SOARING cost of doing business in today's environment, and airlines are looking at any way they can to conserve. It amazes me how many people take these things so painfully personally. Fuel is at $122/bbl, and people still feel that the airlines simply "don't care"? To me, one word comes to mind: survival.

No worries, the other carriers will follow, just like the pretzels, the $25 bag, etc, that people *blasted* USAir for a few short months ago. Hate to say I told ya so.....

I guess you have not flown your biggest competitor WN lately