bseller

THIS. WORD FOR WORD. Times millions.

Dave

PV_Premier

+1

to me the chief irony of UA's initiation of spend-based status earning is that it drew my attention to how much i was spending and how little i was getting out of it. now i'm actually spending more money on DL and AS than i was on UA (higher per segment average, more paid [discount] F than ever), but i'm also feeling like i am getting more out of it.

i got a survey from UA last year sometime about any changes in my travel habits. i let them have it. crickets since then from UA. i'm not a big fish, but if 1000 people like me stopped flying UA...they'd probably notice.

malgudi

Yes. I get all of that ... but why do you care so much about this airline when you've been treated {poorly} and have then decided not to give them any more of your business?

Why not just move on instead if pining for UA to ask why you're not flying with them anymore?

Kacee

Why do people slow down on the freeway so they can check out the accident in another lane?

malgudi

D'oh ... of course

You nailed it. Can't help but watch a train wreck, lofty words like "loss analysis" "case study worthy" notwithstanding!

Bonehead

Well well well...Looks like one of the the poster children for great labor relations is having issues too:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...-contract.html

tcpip95

I certainly appreciate them posting their feelings/observations. It helps me see that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

anc-ord772

1MM and 8 year 1K. I've flown UA twice this year, with another booked, total ~ $600 before taxes.

Wow. Exactly the same outcome here.

PushingTin

I can't think of another area where you want your customer to focus on how much they are spending. I'm not saying that UA shouldn't try to max it- but that you don't want the customers focusing on it. They really should have a proxy level in between the dollars and miles systems that drives revenue with out taking looking at dollars and cents.

I talked to a UA pilot and his comments on summer are how bad the weather is. He is in and out of DEN a lot, and we have had a really wet year so far.

halls120

+2

So far this year, I've flown half as much on UA as I did in the first half of 2014. I have one trip booked for October, and will likely book two more trips on UA during the second half of the year. And that's it. They have turned me from a customer who spent $10-12K per year each year for the last five years to a Premier Gold customer. I know that's a pittance compared to many FFs on United, but I was never a discount fare flyer. My tickets have always been around the 10cpm mark - something UA used to appreciate.

tcpip95

I'll certainly make 1k in miles this year, but probably won't make it on PQD. If I don't - and United doesn't change their program - then I'll move to another airline. I can get crappy service and support anywhere.

BearX220

It was either audacious or tone-deaf to jack up the RDM tiers for 2016 contemporaneous with the airline's unraveling. People paying attention might easily conclude: They want me to pay for more status that has less value while the core product gets worse. I think that's a very difficult proposition for United to defend -- at least to non-captive customers.

halls120

They probably believe most of their customers are captive. Which is ridiculous, because there are always other options.

nyr2299

So here is my thinking:

United has a few goals:
1. Get passengers to their destinations safely and efficiently
2. Provide service at an attractive economic value
3. Provide consistent, above average service so that they choose United over other carriers.

As far as I am concerned, here is the scorecard:
1. Safe, but not efficient. below 50% ontime rate does not qualify as efficient.
2. Ok, they are economically equivalent
3. There are cases of above average service, but definitely not consistent.

I fly over $50k worth of flights per year. Assuming my profit margin to UA is 10%, then I am worth about $5K. Assuming they lose 20% of elite flyers every year (just a guess in my mind), I am worth about $20k (discounted back to current value). With my flying and spend, $20k in value makes me, probably, top 0.1%. If a top 0.1% is worth $20k, then this is not a lot of value. My guess is the cost to replace me is relatively little, and I am sure there are a lot of people coming from where I am. I am not surprised that they discount our loyalty - frankly, I would if I were them.

BearX220

I think they believed replacement cost is low. I think they have begun to see they were wrong.

They are not replacing HVFs like you on a 1:1 basis; your seat is taken by a zero-loyalty Kayaker. UA's financial results reflect this.

It is a common failing of service companies to pour more energy into acquisition than retention when the latter is cheaper and more lucrative. (Telecoms and ISPs do this all the time.) In fact the cost of replacing a customer is pretty daunting. The cost of replacing one formerly loyal price-insensitive customer with 10 or 20 price-sensitive less frequent buyers nets out very high.

As for your assessment of your own value -- think of yourself as part of a cohort. $20k is not much in absolute terms but a bloc of 5,000 customers just like you means $100 million to the company. And in June / July I expect UA made 5,000 at least somewhat valuable customers angry every day.