I think its good news and from most perspectives, quite fair.
Award tickets have never earned miles or segments so it makes sense that 1/2 price award tickets would earn 50% of the total miles. A slightly better compromise would be to grant 100% EQMs while keeping 50% redeemable miles.
AS50 tickets are not award tickets. When you buy an award ticket, the rules of the award apply to the ticket if you want to cancel or change it.
When you buy a AS50 ticket, the rules of the published fare apply for changes and refunds.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by makin'miles
I didn't see this mentioned elsewhere, but terrible news. AF awards to Asia and the BA Award to Australia (via London) will be discontinued just one month from now, after August 31.
This is really a loss... the game is really less fun.
AS50 tickets are not award tickets. When you buy an award ticket, the rules of the award apply to the ticket if you want to cancel or change it.
When you buy a AS50 ticket, the rules of the published fare apply for changes and refunds.
Published fare rules apply to all tickets regardless of purchase method.
Ouch. Everyone is following US Airways in a race to the bottom, and Alaska is no exception it appears. Looks like I won't be signing up for that Mileage Plan Visa after all...
Because mileage flown never decreases, and the fares associated with that mileage rarely decrease either. When you're saving for a free ticket and the goal posts keep getting moved, it's awfully disheartening and frustrating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sxf24
Why is there an expectation that award tickets will never increase in price?
Published fare rules apply to all tickets regardless of purchase method.
Wrong! Rules for award tickets are very different then fare based tickets.
Award tickets allow you to change dates (if space is available) at no additional fee, and/or have all of your miles redeposited into you account if you want to cancel.
Fare based tickets require you to reprice the ticket if you change the outbound date and while you can get a credit for a unused restricted ticket, you most likely will never get a refund.
Another big difference between award and fare based tickets--you can't upgrade into F on a pure award ticket. A ticket bought using the AS50 discount is treated as a non award ticket for upgrade purposes.
Wrong! Rules for award tickets are very different then fare based tickets.
Award tickets allow you to change dates (if space is available) at no additional fee, and/or have all of your miles redeposited into you account if you want to cancel.
Fare based tickets require you to reprice the ticket if you change the outbound date and while you can get a credit for a unused restricted ticket, you most likely will never get a refund.
Another big difference between award and fare based tickets--you can't upgrade into F on a pure award ticket. A ticket bought using the AS50 discount is treated as a non award ticket for upgrade purposes.
I fail to see why that really justifies awarding full mileage.
Published fare rules apply to all tickets regardless of purchase method.
You are mixing fare rules (specific to each fare, whether they be normal revenue tickets or award tickets) with terms in the conditions/contract of carriage.
Because mileage flown never decreases, and the fares associated with that mileage rarely decrease either. When you're saving for a free ticket and the goal posts keep getting moved, it's awfully disheartening and frustrating.
Fares most certainly decrease. Until recently, fares were significantly lower in real dollars than most historical points.
Earning miles has also become increasingly easier, which logically leads to inflation of the currency.
Why is there an expectation that award tickets will never increase in price?
It is obvious that everyone does expect the cost of awards to increase over time. What most people are upset about are the lack of full miles on AS50 awards and the murkiness on the three tier award structure. Most people fear that the super saver awards will be all but impossible to secure (Look at Delta) and the only way to get seats will be at the choice or higher level.
Alaska would have saved lots of grief if they had kept the two tier award structure and just raised redemption levels by 5k to 10k.
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Lets go back to this "normal" redemption thing. Several years ago, major carriers experimented with opening up blackout dates, like Christmas, in return for more miles. Pretty soon, that expanded to seasonal, like summer vs winter. The lemmings ate it up, and with customers as foolish as that, these guys just kept on going, first institutionalizing a multi tier award criteria, then, just forgetting about the lower one all together. Now you can use something like 80,000 miles (not sure that's the number, but it's big) to visit your Aunt in Dallas, if you want a first class seat. The failure to spot that sort of thing, when they are trying it, is what leads to where these airlines have us today. Some of you may recall the attempt to change seating in F, when they set up a static display near Southcenter, and tried to get members to sign off on things like 3 and 2 configuration. There was push back, and it died on the table. It's not a whole lot different from the current oil crisis. With gas prices having risen so high, these gasoline retailers have gotten a chance to really find out what the threshold for pain is, and I'm guessing its higher than they ever imagined. As gas prices settle down, those guys will never let them go to where they were, because we showed them how bad it really had to get, to make us slow down. I see no difference here.
I fail to see why that really justifies awarding full mileage.
The primary justification is in how AS treats a ticket issued with an AS50 award and as of today, they treat it no differently then fare based tickets. If they treated it with the same rules as a pure award ticket, you could argue that no miles should be earned but this is currently not the case.
I buy a PDX to MCO return ticket for $270 and get full mileage.
I buy a SEA to DCA return ticket for $750 and spend 15000 miles to reduce the cost to just under $500 but only get half the miles.
If that makes logical sense to you, then they should eliminate the miles earned on all companion fare tickets, and all deeply discounted fares should only earn 25% base miles.
