As the airlines directly or indirectly move to recognizing revenue more than miles and segments, I would like to know what amount of annual revenue puts a customer in the top percentiles of paying pax?

E.g. does spending $5,000 a year put you in the top 25%, and spedning $10,000 a year put you in the top 5%?

A related question, is there a number to reflect what percentile a Chairman is in? Or are there some interesting stats about Chairman? E.g. how many, range of annual revenue of a Chairman, what percent are men/women, age, other demographics? What jobs do they hold typically? Other stats about Chairman?

I know for instance on the UA board sometimes they compare or find the "cheapest way to 1K," etc.

Are there full fare pax that are Silver or no status that spend more than some Chairman?

Are Chairman changing their flying behavior as a result of the BK and media reports?
Obviously all the carriers try to keep this secret and proprietary, but maybe someone knows something? :)

The cheapest way to CP that I can think of (in this year of hardly any bonuses) would be 100 segments of $29 GoFares... That would run you around $1,500.

I doubt that anyone has actually accomplished that. On a more practical basis I could imagine that there actually might be people making weekly commutes from MHT/PVD to PHL (I used to do that) and that they might be getting $79 fares regularly (that used to run me $650/wk). That would be an annual spend of about $4,000.

These numbers are very rough, back of the napkin stuff -- so don't get too excited about the details ;) The majority of passengers on any flight fly once or twice a year. Roughly speaking a CP flies pretty much weekly (50x the frequency of a once a year flier). A Gold will fly twice a month (25x) and Silver roughly once per month (10x). Preferred members also tend to be business travelers (yes, I know there are exceptions!) and they tend to pay more -- either because they have to (via BlowFares) or they choose to (buying changeable/refundable tix by choice.)

The percentage of preferred customers is small -- but they travel a lot more frequently so the impact of changes in their habits is large. That's why the shift from blindly buying "business" fares to buying "leisure" fares has hurt the legacy carriers so much.

The cheapest way to CP that I can think of (in this year of hardly any bonuses) would be 100 segments of $29 GoFares... That would run you around $1,500.

I doubt that anyone has actually accomplished that. On a more practical basis I could imagine that there actually might be people making weekly commutes from MHT/PVD to PHL (I used to do that) and that they might be getting $79 fares regularly (that used to run me $650/wk). That would be an annual spend of about $4,000.

Agreed, I think one of the cheapest ways to get CP would be a segment run on the $78+ GoFare-type fares with 8 segments in each, costing approximately $125 on each ticket. This would set you back approximately 1500 dollars to get CP status on segments.

Note: this would have to be done on non-US metal such as UA since most US tickets have a 6-segment maximum and USDM gets pissy when you try and book many extras (trust me, I've gotten the call).

-JC

The $29 GoFares require you to fly nonstop. At least the only one I ever booked (PHL-RDU).

The $29 GoFares require you to fly nonstop. At least the only one I ever booked (PHL-RDU).

Correct - all of the PHL-PVD/MHT/RDU/BOS GoFares have that nice little line that states:

ROUTING 3 *** TRAVEL MUST BE NONSTOP ***
3 FROM-TO PHL-US-RDU*

So unfortunately you can only get 2 segments on each R/T for the $29 GoFares. Most of the PHL GoFares are being matched on UA, which allow for many more segments per R/T for the same price.

-JC

I happen to have our direct charge spreadsheet in front of me and I have an employee who is our main travelling diagnostic engineer who spent 11K on 8 tickets RIC-FRA. He has no status and no frequent flier accounts because "it is too much hassle." We also send him to Seoul on NW and his spend there is well over 25K.

I know my own U spend as a US2 is much less.

He has no status and no frequent flier accounts because "it is too much hassle." We also send him to Seoul on NW and his spend there is well over 25K.

11K for 8 RIC-FRA tickets is $1375/roundtrip. Given that, it appears your company doesn't fly him in paid business class. $25K on a few trips to Seoul, however, might be different.

My point is - is this guy *nuts*? Too much hassle? Is he aware that he could have enough points, and status, for some Envoy upgrades for his transatlantic trips?

I'll never understand some people. But then again, many people say the same thing about us FT'ers and question what sane person goes on mileage runs just for the heck of it.

I spent $44,000 in 2003 on US tickets and was not listed as a "Top 500 Customer", if that's any indication.

USFlyerUS,
Thats quite a sum on tickets! Do you feel in any way you were treated like a VIP because of this high spend? It is hard to imagine $44K is not in the top 500? How did you check if you were on the top 500? I know at one point they sent globes to certain high revenue customers? If $44K is not in the top 500 then I would imagine a lot of us have a long way to go :).

I spent $44,000 in 2003 on US tickets and was not listed as a "Top 500 Customer", if that's any indication.
I spent a little over $52,000 in 2003, but it was spread around on several airlines. With cheaper fares this year I going to spend about $44K, all domestic. A little more than half of it will go to US this year, and I'm still treated like a cockroach by some in US management. :D

This week alone it was $1,600 on DL and next week is looking just about the same. (as he types from 3D on the DL DFW flight) But then again, once a cockroach, always a cockroach.

In the fat, dumb and happy 90s they probably had a spreadsheet somewhere that told them a typical CP should spend about $60k annually (50 trips at $1,200 a pop.) To be really special they probably figure you ought to be flying Envoy from LAX to LGW every week and they price those in excess of $10k each...

It seems crazy to you and me but I'm willing to bet my next upgrade that more than one person at CCY thought otherwise until very recently.

USFlyerUS,
Thats quite a sum on tickets! Do you feel in any way you were treated like a VIP because of this high spend? It is hard to imagine $44K is not in the top 500? How did you check if you were on the top 500? I know at one point they sent globes to certain high revenue customers? If $44K is not in the top 500 then I would imagine a lot of us have a long way to go :).

Honestly, $44K isn't really that much. Given I travel 50 weeks/year most years, that's only about $880/week, which isn't much given all of my travel consists of transcons booked within 7 days of departure. In fact, that's a great per week rate given how close to departure I typically book.

At any rate, all of my $ is going to NW now. I got sick of US.