rankourabu

I m fine with benefits going to premium cabin passengers.

There is a big distinction to be made between premium pax and Y pax whose ticket price is simply higher due to circumstance (mostly OPM).

I would also be more than fine with points earned while flying for work being taxed.

TravellingMan

With the price of oil falling, it is a matter of time before the fuel surcharges start dropping. US Airlines might not be interested in dropping the YQ surcharge but it takes one (US or Intl carrier) to break away from the pack to cause the rest of the fares to drop. In such a scenario wondering how the PQD targets are going to work out?

Disclaimer:
I flew 98k EQM (after getting 50% or 0% on certain Star Alliance carriers) at a PQD of $4k. As I am not interested in playing their game anymore. Why pay more for the same crappy experience?

Kacee

JL is dropping YQ by approximately 40 percent effective Feb. 1.

rankourabu

Pretty sure YQ in Japan is government regulated

YQ is a scam when it comes to award tickets, almost all FFPs (except US based ones) charge these as award co-pay

While YQ doesnt really play a part in revenue tickets (or PQDs for that matter), who cares if its $5 base + $495 YQ or $450 base + $50 YQ, I dont see it being eliminated as award co-pay.

Kacee

Government regulated does not mean set by the government. This change was initiated by JL, and is subject to government approval. JAL Press Release.

This will in fact reduce the cost of award redemptions on JL.

TravellingMan

Thanks for that info. Next waiting for someone to add capacity

Will definitely be interested in seeing how they sell the PQD targets once the ticket prices drop.

Bonehead

No more Skypesos? What has changed?

RNE

I assume this note...

...on a booking of mine for travel in September, 2015 does not reflect reality—not that I expect a lot of reality from UA.

RNE, actually going to make 16,000+ RDMs on that booking. ^

LaserSailor

I think you misunderstand the nature of "fuel surcharges ". The quotation marks are deliberate.

AA_EXP09

How would you police this?
By destination? Time? Cost?
What if I fly AAA-BBB, must stay in BBB for work for 5 days, and go on 2 weeks holiday afterwards? Provided employer pays ticket cost, would this be taxable? Would only outbound then be taxable (going to work) and inbound not taxable?
If by cost, what if employee pays part of the cost?
i.e. a PAX buys YVR-BOM on BA. He must fly to LON for work on a ticket that costs $1000 and a fare to BOM that allows inbound stopover in LON is $200 more expensive inclusive of tax than YVRLON. The employee reimburses the employer $200 to cover personal travel. Which portion of mileage is taxable? 5/6 of YVRBOM v.v? YVRLON v.v only? YVRLON oneway (as departure from LON is thereafter for personal travel.)

transportprof

Have I missed the announcement on mileage accumulation when flying ticketed on *A partners?

Has DL made such a pronouncement for their partners' flights, which I presume will trigger UA's response?

UA-NYC

Nope! And yes, it's almost 2015.

Yes, DL already announced it. Not good. So UA's will also not be good, whenever they can be bothered to announce it.

rankourabu

I dont work for the IRS, so I dont think its my problem

bocastephen

I think the root problem here is unrestricted mergers - by allowing DL/NW, UA/CO and AA/US, we've effectively slashed the number of carriers in half, and by doing so, the airlines don't see a lot of choice for customers, and the driver for a FFP has changed.

In a perfect world, the mergers would have been blocked, especially UA/CO and AA/US given the evidence available to the market after DL/NW....in a more perfect world, the government could sue to undo the UA/CO and AA/US mergers, but probably doesn't have the cojones to even try no matter the impact to consumers.

It might be that the new purpose of a FFP is to push truly high yield customers to position of loyalty while dumping everyone else to kayak or corp travel search engines - and offloading the concept of rewards to credit cards who have a higher margin on points.

I see a flaw in this plan, however - as none of the legacy carriers offer a product that can beat B6, VX or even WN - and for international travel, why would anyone with half a brain fly a US carrier that offered no incentive when they could fly a foreign carrier with a far superior product, and equally no incentive.

If I earn few or no miles for flying UA, and can't use a GPU to upgrade economy to business, why in the world should I fly UA? The product has absolutely no redeeming qualities when compared to SQ, CX, AF or BA...and at worst offers the same hard product with a better soft product.

When you offer a cheaper grade product, you better be prepared to give people a reason to buy it - telling me "look, mergers, no choice!" is as lame as telling me "network, wifi, 787!".

Also to add some dimension to the YQ debate - these are nothing but a scam whether a revenue or award ticket. It's no different from seeing an ad for a $99 refrigerator, then going to the store and finding out there is $750 fee for delivery or cash/carry. If it's not bad enough for consumers, YQ is used to screw over travel agents too - we're only paid commission on base fares, so an airline that offers a 20% incentive commission against a $1,000 fare with a $1,000 YQ is basically paying me a 10% commission while promising something else....and it happens all the time. The YQ really needs to be banned as a deceptive trade practice - if fuel costs are high, then raise the damn base fare and be done with it.

transportprof

Thanks for the update. I took a quick look at DL's changes and they seem to depend on many variables. Four tiers of alliance partners makes *A look simple by comparison.

If fare code mapping across the DL alliance carriers is as opaque as it is between United and *A partners, then it will be quite a challenge to figure out actual mileage earning options before booking.