US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Randy

Deelmakur said:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">I'm also a little disappointed with our friend in Colorado Springs. Randy is one of the people who stands to lose big on this kind of thing. Full fare flyers (the few that there are)don't spend a lot of time reading magazines that tell you how to run up miles, and upgrade. I have not seen him doing anything.</font>

Quite right. He's been awfully quiet and has a lot to lose. OTOH I believe that he said that he gets most of his personal miles from non-flight activities so maybe this doesn't worry him?

IMHO one of the most useful long term things that Randy could do would be to develop an "outreach" program for airlines & their employees that educates them on what FF programs are all about, how they work and what the economics of them are. The ignorance of employees -- especially as being currently demonstrated on usaviation.com and in the thread about Capt Munn -- is more than just appalling. It's dangerous. (An advanced version of the program for Senior Executives might also be a good idea...)

I supppose, in his defense, there isn't much he can do, although the stewardship of the Freddie award gives him some standing with these guys. They are also advertisers, and the guy has to make a living, but I think it would be useful to hear from him in open forum. What we are witnessing from this airline is an assault on the basic premise of loyalty programs. If they can reduce these to the personal privelege of the few that buy the most expensive tickets (and by the way, these aren't zillionaires..they just happen to work for somebody who lets them, or can bill it to some unsuspecting client), then the whole ballgame has changed, and the rest of us are on the "spot" market, chasing the deal of the week. We might as well get it on the table.

He has responded and is doing some behind the scenes work, I hope http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007386.html

Orginally posted by Randy Petersen:

The 'real story' isn't really about this announcement by US Airways, so rather than just knee-jerk this, let me continue my research and get back to all of you when a more complete picture appears. I'm more interested in the bigger picture than US Airways right now. Plenty of time for them to know when to hold and when to fold.

There are two important days in all this:this Friday and next Monday. If any other programs in the industry don't reply by then it will certainly mean that US Airways is alone on this and likely a candidate for a retraction. By monday evening we'll know to seriously get busy on this issue or not.
I thnk a mistake has been made by many here on FlyerTalk to focus on US Airways. If I might suggest anything in the meanwhile is to contact your own program and let them know your thoughts on this issue should they be considering it. That's the bigger picture.



[This message has been edited by planeluvr (edited 09-01-2002).]

Thanks planeluvr, that was helpful. He's right, this isn't a one carrier issue.