plasticman

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/22/maga...rior/index.htm

Whaddaya mean FewMiles is not up to date!!!

JonNYC

That'oughta finish it off once and for all.

ad_DCA

It's not a very well-kept secret, I wouldn't worry too much. I know quite a few people that travel a lot for the government and know about it. In fact I found out about flyertalk when googling to get info on the challenge, not the other way around. I know that a huge number of corporate travel offices tip people to it as well. If you know better then correct me, but I don't get the impression that AA is going to freak out if it becomes more widely known, it seems they created it on purpose, and it's not exactly easy for the average joe to get even 10k points in 90 days, though it seems that way to road warrior types.

Edited to add:

http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...te&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...um&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...de&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...um&btnG=Search

And so on... basically the point being that anyone that's curious about how to get elite status on AA as easily as possible, and who's capable of using google, is going to find about about challenges in about 0.46 seconds. I wouldn't fret about a line mention in a CNN thing.

JDiver

Ah, well, we'll be joined at the Plat levels by a few who manage this - but a number will drop back to Gold Feb 28 2007 because they 1) won't maintain the effort to earn status for 2007, and 2) they don't know that they could do the challenge the second half of the year. In the overall scheme, not so much... but I do hope they will find more newsworthy events to distract, er, engage them.

Of course, they also are confusing people with the points vs. miles issue, so this confusion will assure the number is even smaller. FewMiles' site is, as others point out, a bit out of date. And if the masses are thinking Platinum will get them a 777 suite AUS-DFW, well... IMO, not to worry.

Gardyloo

My view on such things "cheapening" elite status is that I think if more people get to ride up front - by whatever means, and however temporarily - they will resist the pain of riding in the back all the more. Net result will be less satisfaction with Y- and more pressure on the airlines to improve conditions in coach. The majority probably won't re-qualify, so the bump in competition for premium seats will be short-lived. If they do re-qualify, then good for AA.

justageek

That was my thought exactly.

It may have been well known in the circles that folks like us frequent, but AFAIK this is the first time a major national media outlet has publicized it.

The pointer to FM's site is unfortunate since it is so out of date; there's a fair amount of information there that is no longer correct, which I'm sure is going to drive AA crazy.

izzik

Ditto.

To clarify the comment below, my use of the term "publish" was more traditional in nature (newspaper/print). Feel free to add pseudo-legal opinions at this point.

ad_DCA

Isn't that what the sticky is doing?



Since when was a very high traffic internet site some sort of secret? Seriously, no offense to the collective point of view here, but the challenges aren't even remotely secret whatsoever. Every company big enough to have a travel office knows about them, they're on literally hundreds of travel information websites, and anyone who does the most obvious and basic thing imaginable to get details on American's FF program (like type this into google) will find info on the first page of search results. How does fewmiles get to page 1 of all the google searches? By being linked too from tons of places. How do people get information these days? The internet.

I'm very confused by this point of view. Some transitory mention on a cable channel pales drastically in comparision to the very prominent presence on the internet. There's a lot of obscure information on the FT boards, but the mere existence of challenges is definitely not that.

izzik

Now that I think of it, this article might be a shame for the readers of Business 2.0 as the FewMiles website is rather inaccurate with the Q-point accrual charts.

FutureCEO1982

I think alot of the information has changed. When I orginally looked at it, it was confusing and had some incorrect information..... but thank goodness for finding FT and the sticky!!.... and now PLT, almost EXP!

FutureCEO1982

FWAAA

I may be mistaken, but I think the Challenges were covered more than 10 years ago in the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and they're still with us.

nako

I wonder what would happen if the FewMiles link would break for some unknown reason. (Given the accuracy of some of the data, that might not be such a bad thing.)

Mike

jabrams72

I think that would just send more people FT's way from google.

dukieee

the difference between internet and paper is that you have to search in the former (with the assumption that there could be something useful out there), while the latter pushes the stuff right into your face even if you've never thought about status.
That's a big difference in a world where people have little time to manage things actively. I'd think there are much more people saying "oh, interesting to read that there is a shortcut to status" than "I need to google if there is a shortcut to status".

ad_DCA

Perhaps. But don't forget that it's a pretty small percentage of people who fly 5,000 q-point equivalent a year at all, ever, on any combination of airlines. That's more true still for 10k a year.

Anyone who does do this, or might do it, and doesn't realize there are frequent flier programs out there is just clueless and not reading "road warrior tips" in the first place.

I don't know - I won't beat it to death, but I just disagree. The challenges aren't even slightly secret IMHO. I've heard many people talk about them, it's basically gospel at all the big consulting and accounting firms, or among the government contractor community (my world).