portland67

Dear United

You’ve been my go to airline for my life of 33 years. Growing up in Hawaii everyone flew United to get to wherever you wanted to go to outside of Hawaii. As a kid I loved the DC-10 flights especially the red-eyes to SFO and ORD, watching your planes take-off from the end of the reef runway with my dad. I flew you back and forth to college in Oregon from Hawaii. As a working adult, I tried to fly you as much as I could unless I was on a time constraint and had to fly AS or AA non-stop. I moved to Denver and was really happy with all of my non-stop destinations instead of having to connect from PDX on my favorite airline. I had my United college card, United platinum card, and now my Mileage Plus explorer card. I’ve been happy with my gold status for the past 9 years even with all the changes that the airline and mileage plus have been through until yesterday.

Being a corporate banker I understand the business realization and you need to generate more cash flow and hit your projections. But as a client this sucks and I’m tired of death by a thousand cuts. I understand I don’t travel on the most expensive fares, I have to go on the cheapest fare shown on my company’s travel website but I do the good majority of my work and all of my personal flying with United. Keeping the freaking globe instead of the tulip was disappointing but understandable. Adding more RJ’s to routes like Portland, Atlanta, Burbank, etc is not the best flying experience but again understandable since you need to right size capacity. Flying 737’s from LAX, SFO and now a 757 to HNL absolutely sucks. If I’m flying home I’d prefer to be on a widebody jet especially since you flew DC-10’s and 747’s for 30 years to Hawaii. Cutting my RDM bonus in 2011 by 50% was disappointing but understandable considering the liability on your balance sheet. Now I’m going to see a 47% RDM reduction and still have to spend 5K to maintain my status!!

After thinking about it, I’m done. It won’t be the old adage of “it’s not you, it’s me”. This change is definitely because of you and your ineptitude. I’ll still keep the credit cad so if I need to fly you, I’ll board with all the other zone 2 gate lice. But I’ll just take my lowly 60k miles a year and move over to SWA where at least I can get a companion pass with all of my spend and flying. And when I do go home, I’ll just connect on Hawaiian.

It’s been fun United!!! A hui hou!!!

vandrei

Dump the credit card. Buy priority boarding when you need it.

flyinbob

It is truly a mystery why the UA board continues to allow the outflow of long-term loyal customers and their revenue. I haven't been on a UA international flight in several years, and won't be. My C (and occasional F! ) revenue will continue to be directed at airlines that provide service worth the cost. Part of what UA USED to provide was rewards for loyalty, especially domestically.

Now, they would sooner spit on us that take our money, and how that passes with the stockholders and board it the true mystery.

portland67

If I was there banker, I'd be adding more covenants to their credit facilities. Part of being a good banker is understanding the company and their management. Their management is freaking terrible.

Dieuwer

Instead I suggest calling Chase and demand a BIG retention bonus. Otherwise, yes cancel.

globetrotter415

there's no point in having status at united anymore. i am not going to abandon united completely but i will be flying other star alliance partners instead since i will still be credited for miles flown, not this ticket spend non-sense. i will also keep the credit card and accumulate miles but all my flying money will NOT go to united. i might only be a silver, but this silver will be throwing $3k+ elsewhere.

CMK10

Agreed. I have the credit card and if I buy E+ I'm essentially treated the same as a Premier Gold. I can get through the priority security line at RDU with "Priority Boarding" on my BP, I board at the same time and I wasn't getting upgrades anyway.

flyinbob

And status meant loyalty. I for one had United as the ONLY bookmarked web site for buying tickets. Now, United is still there, WAAAYYYY down the list only to be checked when an ignorant relative insists on flying them and I need to check to see how late the flight will be.

From the beginning of my flying with United, I always knew my MP number. Memorized like my Social Security, or cell number. Today I couldn't tell you what it is, except it now has letters in it.

United has no concept of loyalty, so they get no loyalty from us.

brendog

I finally bailed, not because any other airline in the US is substantially better, but because AA, AS, and DL suck less. My final straw was US leaving *A, as, being based out of DCA, the vast majority of my shorthauls were on US, while I used UA for TCON and TATL travel. Thus far, using AS as the home for my miles and kayaking it a bit, I have not fared too poorly, and have yet to have flown on something smaller than an E175 this year. I'm hoping that once US and AA frankenstein themselves together that I can credit legacy US flights to AS. While US is absolutely awful, I can tolerate it for an hour if I get a convenient nonstop.

My loyalty to UA mainly stemmed from having been DEN and ORD based for quite a few years. If I had been ATL based, I would have chosen DL. Honestly, my loyalty to any company extends only as far as it is advantageous to me. The second I, as the customer, fail to come out ahead, I'm gone.

Depending as to where my next transfer takes me, I may well end up back on UA some day and knock off the last 50k miles to 1MM.

tht

I am pretty much out, but it has nothing to do with any changes United made. I was commuting DUB/LHR-EWR since 2008, but have stopped flying for work so not flying enough to keep 1K after 2014, and on that basis I might as well fly with the airline with the best product, which since most of my leisure travel is long haul international will always be a foreign carrier. Have used all my GPU's, have about 500k more miles to burn (hopefully on non UA metal) and while I am only 130k from MM I don't see me getting that unless I change to a job that pays me to fly again.

tht

circitmage

I left UACO in 2013 and haven't looked back ... my travel budget 2008-13 was $70k+/yr, the rest of my team was well north of $300K+/yr ... all of that spend is now going to DL or AA and will do so for some time ... The 999th cut for me was being bypassed on the upgrade list as a GS by a metal who bought a ToD upgrade ... the 998th was not getting my "SWU" (system wide - hah!!) and "RJU" extended by even a week past their expiration after having been a GS for 5+ years ... "Thank you for your loyalty"?!!! ... only could take being made out to be chump 1000 times

remedy

Actually had to BUY into an elite challenge on US Airways, but have been upgraded about half of my flights as a silver elite compared to virtually zero on UA (as 1K, platinum, nod now gold). As we all know, US Airways is not too glitzy, but their staff has been better, and there are those upgrades....

tom911

Not willing to reconsider UA now that a $70K spend would bring in 770,000 Mileage Plus miles? Surely has to be a significant amount of miles than you would have brought in before. UA has to be thinking they can lure both DL and AA flyers with those kind of miles in play, regardless of some of the side issues like upgrades or customer service. Miles can be a powerful motivator.

Always Flyin

Not a chance.

First UA significantly ups the mileage redemption levels for first class awards on partner airlines, which has made availability on UA metal almost non-existent.

So they will give me more miles? Big deal. I have to spend those inflated miles at inflated prices. The net effect is the same. And I have to endure the substandard hard and soft product on UA to get those miles.

SMI/J is dependent on those locked into corporate contracts, those at fortress hubs, and the remainder who just don't know any better and either don't want to learn or refuse to learn there are far better alternatives out there, particularly on international travel.

LaserSailor

No logic allowed in bash threads, sorry.