Dieuwer

That's not what boraxo said.

sdsearch

Well, if that's what low spend customers do, then there are also mid spend customers between the low spend and the HSC. For example, those who aren't HSC yet do have airline status of some sort, and if the airline treats them well because of that status, they may not be as fickle as the "low spend", even though they're not the high spend of the HSCs.

So the world is not divided simply into HSC and low-spend.

And various companies recognize that. A typical question in an Avis post-rental survey has been to categorize yourself as a customer out of several choices, the choice I always pick is "I'm sensitive to price, but I may be willing to pay a bit more for better service". (In the Avis case, the "better service" refers to speedier access to your car at pickup, upgrades, etc.)

But anyway, if an airline asked me to rate myself among the same choices, I'd categorize myself the same way: For example, I lean towards AA for coach flights because I have free access to their Main Cabin Extra "extra legroom" section (and before they introduced that I had free access to exit rows), while at other ailrines I have to pay for that (and that raised the effective price at other airlines), and as a somewhat tall person that extra seat pitch is important to me. On the other hand, I book my flights mostly weeks in advance to save money. And when I (very rarely) need (personal) last-minute flights, I've used Southwest "standard" awards (instead of cash) for that. (Unfortunately, those seem to be going away in about 17 months, so I don't know what I'll do for last-minute flights after that.) But, again, to help gain access to exit row seats, when flying Southwest I pay extra for Early Bird.

And, at any rate, I fly paid flights more times a year than the average "low spend" person (even though I also fly award flights).

carpentry4thought

Some animals figure out how to get in and out of a trap with the treat in hand, while the other animals ...

Boraxo

Actually I find them more useful than airline miles, which is why I have so few of them

I don't have enough of them because I generally use my points to stay at the higher end leisure properties and I don't earn them fast enough to meet my annual needs. Conversely I have airline miles coming out of my ears because I am frequently unable to use them at saver award levels and refuse to pay 2x or 3x miles for anytime awards.

This is where the 2% cash reward cards become a better bet for some people. $100k spend reaps $2000 towards a ticket v. 100k points which may or may not be usable for flights that cost $2000. Not everyone needs miles to fly TATL/TPAC in C/F particularly families flying within North America.

sedubby

God I hate the news. Anyone who has ever read an article written in the news on either 1) themselves 2) something they are a domain expert in or 3) something they have insider information knows it is total BS.

Ambraciot

Under conventional mileage based FF programs the co-branded cards rarely made any sense. At the end of last year I used 40k Flexperk points (mostly from a sign up bonus, but they could just as easily have come from spending $20k on flights) to book a free $782 AA coach ticket BOS-LAX-PVG-ORD-BOS (which I then upgraded to business with SWUs) for a long weekend and went down to Hangzhou and the West Lake while I was in the area. I earned 38k AA rdm and 19k eqm (which earned replacements for the SWUs) from flying the trip and stayed at cheap but decent IHG hotels which rounded out my Big Win.

Basically I got a roundtrip in business class from BOS to PVG at a net loss of 2k additional AA miles I would have earned using their co-branded card... Conventional high yielding FF programs will be sorely missed if the devaluations continue.

TravelerMSY

These articles about mileage devaluation all have it wrong. Upgrades and elite status qualification is what drives purchasing decisions for frequent travelers- not the value of the incremental miles they might earn from flying.

dogcanyon

Yes, proving once again that not knowing a damn thing about a subject never stopped a journalist from writing an article. We all see it daily on these moronic
"12 Things You Never Knew About Blah Blah Blah" fluff articles on the internet.

Max M

Indeed.

And unless the ".edu" for the co-authors is from professors at the listed universities, then we are reading an article written by college students.

If it's written by grad students or profs at the universities, then maybe they should spend some more time on FlyerTalk.

Kagehitokiri

yes consumer has blame, but so does supplier (i usually just consider blame equal) - its a cycle of decline

GUWonder

That is the thinking of at least DL airlines' management personalities. And UA is copying DL. And the US industry cartel is led by the big 3 kingpins who want to play nicely with one another in this new era of an oligopolistic market where they have the benefit of various governmental waivers and favors to more easily collude and to signal to each other.

Unfortunately I expect that the hook of elite benefits is such a major part of the honey-trap that the big 3 cartel kingpins will get away with it easily -- more easily in the current environment in the US.

"Blame the audience, for the audience is driving the market and how the market is supplied."

There is no cycle of decline between "news" consumer and supplier. Things have been pretty much like this since at least the late 1880s -- as a matter of fun, I spent years during my off time reviewing microfilms of various publications going back several decades and even into the prior century. Things are neither much worse nor much better today -- if anything we have way more consumers with way more "news" consumption power today than ever before .... including because the baseline of the population that is formally considered literate is larger than it used to be. Familiar with the history and use of the world "vulgar/vulgarity"? The public gets what the public wants and is willing to (not) pay. Pay teachers or journalists relatively less compared to the median of the time and cut their total compensation benefits (inclusive of unionization rights/benefits) package, then get results like this. This is nothing new. When the socio-economic status and compensation package status of teachers and journalists is far from great, then expect far from great results. Consumers got the market that consumers deserved to get. I'm not thrilled with all the outcomes , but the outcomes are to be expected -- much today as forty or eighty years ago.

toomanybooks

Professors, lawyers, doctors (especially surgeons), dentists, government employees, etc. do not typically have the turn of mind or mental training to maximize things like FF programs. In some cases it also comes down to how busy they are. But many of them are convinced they are always the smartest guys in the room on everything, which is why they often lose their shirts in the stock market or investing in businesses.

You should generally look toward entrepreneurs, traders, chess players, IT guys.

Yes, a stereotype, but a true one. Obviously exceptions.

GUWonder

Weird stereotyping.

This board has lots of current, former or aspiring professors, lawyers, doctors and government employees playing this game on FT and playing it well.

toomanybooks

"Generally."

"Typically."

"..exceptions."

84fiero

What's your basis for this assertion? (yes you noted "exceptions" but to opine that something is a "true stereotype", you must have some experience or data to base it on?)

I'd say one comes tons of lawyers and medical professionals on FT. I met several dentists or doctors at the one Chicago Seminar I attended. I'm a government employee and there are a fair number of us on here, too.

But that's my anecdotal experience, and I really don't know how anyone has the data to assert that some professions are more or less into the FF game...much less to state that they "...do not typically have the turn of mind or mental training.." for it. Truly one of the more ignorant and offensive things to say about groups of people that I've seen on FT lately!