I think this is pretty dumb of US Airways. But, in a way, I can't blame them, because of Bush and his dumb war, it's costing everyone a lot of money and we're seeing everything becoming more expensive.
Au contraire, it was the Hildebeest's, John "Flop Flop" Kerry and a whole pack of Dims' war too.
You're confusing GW with Doug Parker. GW doesn't make a decision and it happens, the Congress had to approve it. Doug "makes it so" with a comment.
Given your comment, hopefully you're voting for Obama and not the Flip Flopping Hildebeest.
The only other logical reason I can think of why they would do this is that many members must be taking connecting flights when they could take a direct flight.
This will now make that less beneficial and could free up seats for more revenue passengers.
All they would have had to do in that case was institute a policy that awards miles from origin to destination regardless of connections. There might actually be merit in something like that, vs trashing people who are buying expensive short haul flights.
All they would have had to do in that case was institute a policy that awards miles from origin to destination regardless of connections. There might actually be merit in something like that, vs trashing people who are buying expensive short haul flights.
But that gets extremely complicated! For example in 2000 I flew daily and a sample day would be PHX/SFO/PDX/SLC/PHX or PHX/SAN/LAX/SFO/PHX.
How are they going to easily track that? And hours between flights would mean a whole new analytical system sucking data from their overtaxed data warehouse.
Everyone here trying to come up with a reasonable answer for why it makes sense doesn't take into account that they could have easily bypassed a lot of grief by giving Silver or Gold on up to Chairman the 500 minimum and everyone below true miles. No screaming, yelling or putting off your best customers.
I can give you three very good examples of where they completely blew it for their top customers because they don't hire strong people. The fact is that except for the top three or four folks at US, many of us here make more than everyone in the corporation. They try to do it on the cheap and they get lesser experienced or less than intelligent people. I am not one for making fat at a HQ, but your key people in charge of the primary business units should be the best of the best and you should pay them for it. Instead they have line ops people that have made less income than your landscaper for years that have hung around until they were promoted into a title and role where they can't provide value.
Ah well, I'm wasting my breath. US will soon be in the dust heap of the US airline history after the upcoming mergers that make more sense than HP and US.
As long as they are going to credit actual miles then I hope they log true actual miles - every turn, circling when in a holding pattern, taxing. etc. Might as well be consistent.
As long as they are going to credit actual miles then I hope they log true actual miles - every turn, circling when in a holding pattern, taxing. etc. Might as well be consistent.
Here's a sane alternative! PHX/LAX = ~358 miles actual air. But we know they end up being 588. I'd want the 588 dang it!
Just sent a mass email out to our high-frequency/revenue travelers (about 200 of us) at my firm (based in WAS) and even at this late hour - have heard back from many that say they'll never fly US again....even though flying on competitors is less convienent.
Not a great start to Doug's new idea.
The shame of this is over the past couple months, I've been impressed by the operational turnaround that US has been experiencing. Luckily, I'm almost all on UA now, so this shouldn't affect me at all.
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Not all those who wander are lost.
My Flightmemory
USAirways seems to want to make Dividend Miles a program where its customers get more miles for some $50 purchases unrelated to flying than they may get for paying $500 and flying US Airways roundtrip. Pretty pitiful to call this a frequent flyer program when it is going the way of a frequent buyer program operated like a pyramid scheme.
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This game is not as much fun as it used to be: 2008/2009 Frequent Flyer Program Fleecing Award goes to Delta Airlines
Programs: SPG Platinum, UA 1P, US Silver, HP Masters emeritus (sigh)
Posts: 224
I do agree that the revenue per mile figures can be somewhat misleading. On the TUS-PHX connections I fly regularly, it's rare that anyone's actually going just to PHX since it's just as fast to drive (and you don't have to deal with Mesa). And the fares are often the same to connect from TUS as to go nonstop from PHX. So we aren't providing a lot of revenue for that segment.
BUT what HQ has to realize is that there will be NO revenue from TUS-PHX or our connections if this change sticks because there are options for us. We can either drive to PHX, take one of the many nonstop options from TUS, or connect in another hub with an airline that gives you 500 min.
Many, many times I have opted to connect through PHX on US for the sole reason of collecting 500 FF. Example: TUS-LAX, nonstop on UA, DL and WN for 1 hour, 15 min. Connect with US: 3 hrs min.
I always went with US, if the fare was about the same. Now I won't. My potential seat will go empty on both US legs and I'll get there quicker, too.
for years, my friends and relatives have given me endless grief for my dogged loyalty to a company they all consider inferior to its competition. but i'm a us airways homer. for christ's sake, my wife and i used company-logo cocktail napkins at the open bar during our wedding reception!
i sat on the "consumer advisory board" for us airways (in the pre-merger days). though it never came to fruition, i was asked by chris chiames to serve as a policy consultant to us airways regarding in-flight medical emergencies, etc (i am an emergency medicine doctor). i was very fond of chris and deborah thompson also -- even stayed in touch a bit with both of them after their departures.
i'm 33 years old, a 100% leisure traveler, and i've accrued over 1,000,000 dividend miles to date (though i've burned nearly 700,000 of them). i guess i'm not a "high-revenue" customer, but when my wife and i decided to see what life was like on another airline a few years ago (we status-matched to northwest), we got a call from us airways' executive office, and they said that they noticed we hadn't been flying as much and wanted to know if we were still traveling, with whom we were traveling, and what they could do to lure us back (the call alone was enough to lure us back, but suffice it to say we were welcomed back generously). i was a chairman's preferred for four or five years in a row, but now i'm gold (we just had our first child last year, and we cut back on our travel as a result). i know nearly all the us airways staff at my home airport. i once helped my sister secure a job with the airline via my "connections". bottom line: i fly a lot, and i've always been a little over the top (ok, way over the top) about us airways.
true, i've occasionally whined a bit here and there when i disapproved of something related to the airline, but my voice is not one of those that has been constantly critical, constantly derisive, constantly negative. for the most part, i have been supportive of us airways, through thick and thin.
but i am a homer no more. it has taken me a while to realize that this is no longer the us airways that i once knew. i grew fond of this airline in its pre-merger days, and it is evident to me now that it is but a shell of what it once was. the airplanes look the same, but everything else has changed. and it hasn't changed for the better.
i have read every post in this 15 page thread, and for all the reasons detailed above, i believe the decision to withdraw the 500 mile minimum credit for short haul flights is incredibly short-sighted, another egregious affront to their loyal customers, and a plainly awful business decision that will place them at a tremendous comeptitive disadvantage in the marketplace. as many have said before, i feel that this is the straw that breaks my back.
i am not some idiot who regularly boycotts companies, products, or services on philosophical or political grounds. but i hereby pledge, henceforth: i will not ever purchase another us airways ticket or product. i will not ever make another charge on my us airways credit card. i will status-match immediately to a competitor, and will hopefully become as doggedly loyal to a new airline as i have been to us airways. when it is convenient for me, i will burn all my remaining miles on premium award tickets on *a airlines.
i don't have the time, energy, or organizational skills to save receipts and fax/email proof of my new habits to us airways. i'm not really that spiteful anyway. they may soon notice i'm gone, but they won't know where i went and i don't suspect they'll care much this time anyway. i'm sad that this time has come, but i will no longer tolerate the arrogance and indifference of this airline's management toward its most frequent fliers, nor the relentless devaluation of my "loyalty program" account with them.
A very sad day for US Airways flyers (my friend swears by them for her TATL trips). After hearing this news, she's reconsidering FF program... and airline (as she does both long and shorthaul - as do I).
I'm going to get her to modify her booking details to accrue with BMI Diamond Club instead.
So its a choice US Airways Dividend Miles (worse earnings but better *A access), UA Mileage Plus (and their better earning, but lack of *A flights), or other airlines.
If you're flying TransPacific/TATL, go with another *A airline who will welcome you. If you want the status, If its Domestic, UA will welcome with open hands in your wallet, or AA/DL/NW/WN will surely welcome you with open arms (and a status match)...
Location: exPIT....now FLL and avoiding US....oops LCC & a DL convert
Posts: 949
15 pages of interesting reading
I am going to challenge every one of you that says you are not going to fly US anymore because of this latest idiotic move by this mess of an airline.
Will you stick to your convictions and not fly US even if they turn around and rescind their latest mistake? Or will you go blindly back to flying them?
How many times do you need to see they don't care about loyal and frequent flyers? They don't know how to run an airline and deal with their customers on the east coast.
There has been an outpouring of distaste for this airline for too long. Are you willing to walk away and stay away? For those of us who flew US for a very very long time, for me since 1987, this "new" US is not the US I knew and loved. In my eyes, the US I knew died when they merged with HP.
__________________ The trouble with resisting tempation is that you may not get another chance.....Laurence Peter
A new low? Hardly. That award goes to UNITED, in my opinion, for their ingenuity in getting folk to pay extra for a COACH seat (and calling it an upgrade), as well as charging to check a second bag.
From my perspective, the 500 minimum miles awarded on short haul flights was a GIFT since the difference between the actual miles flown and the 500 miles really weren't earned. I'm surprised that they have continued the practice as long as they have and expect other carriers to follow suit. Since the miles weren't earned, I have difficulty complaining about something that I received, but wasn't ENTITLED to (if that makes sense). I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but that's how I see it. The only thing I'd like to see in view of the change is that they change the top tier elite level requirements to 50K and 75K, like other airlines, which would offset the reduction.
But that gets extremely complicated! For example in 2000 I flew daily and a sample day would be PHX/SFO/PDX/SLC/PHX or PHX/SAN/LAX/SFO/PHX.
How are they going to easily track that? And hours between flights would mean a whole new analytical system sucking data from their overtaxed data warehouse.
Your ticket has a stop point for fare purposes, that's where the miles could post from. UA seems to get this right without issue for the purpose of costing out 500-mile upgrades (even on same day turnarounds), and their IT generally bites!
At the end of the day, disincentivizing someone who takes a specific routing just to increase their miles is understandable. Just pointing out that there were other options on the table if that was their goal instead of a universal solution that sticks it to premium fare short haul O/D flyers. They also could have limited the policy to certain fare buckets.
I'm not a US flyer, but I thought I would report to you that I heard this story on WTOP news radio in Washington today. they quoted Flyertalk.com (probably this thread) as saying the change was 'stupid'.
Not to gloat, but I read in the paper that there is a waiver for the last minute booking fee for Chairman's and Platinum. My question is why did I get the generic, plain vanilla email, that had no mention of this waiver. Or, maybe I was so ticked about the short-haul whack that I missed it. US CCY emails used to recognize you for the tier level and by name, but I guess they don't care and want to shock all customers with this negative alarming news, and don't care if you saw the exceptions or not.
