I'm grounded due to an accident for six weeks, but this is another reason I'm glad I moved over to CO. It confirms my decision was the right one. Clean planes, professional IT and an airline that cares about its best customers.
I think I dropped from CP to Silver last year instead of dirt only because of my now closed US Visa and Mastercards giving me 20,000 preferred miles, but as usual US can't seem to send anything out timely confirming it, so it is still speculation on my part. Maybe because of fuel costs those charge miles will retroactively be taken away.
sorry for responding to my own post, but here's the math for LGA-DCA shuttle flyers:
silver
current: 500 + 125 bonus = 625 each way
"new": 214 + 54 bonus = 268 each way
gold
current: 500 + 250 bonus = 750 each way
"new": 214 + 107 bonus = 321 each way
since segments count WAY more toward qualifying than total miles for us short-hoppers, this change in policy does not affect our status. i got silver in just over three months on segments and if i were to stick with US i'd get gold around july only on segments. but segments don't buy me award travel and i like to vacation for free after all of the work-related flying i do. chopping the award miles in half while i'm silver (and by almost 60% for gold) when there is a viable alternative a couple of concourses away makes no sense.
of course, if the DL/NW merger happens, who knows where there programs go from there...
Last edited by squatch; Feb 14, 08 at 7:25 am.
Reason: edited to fix small math error
What amazes me with this, is that the 500 miles (or 1,000 back then) minimum was made to PROMOTE short hauls, and fill up the smaller planes/smaller markets with people that normally wouldn't fly those segments (e.g. myself, flying CAE-CLT).
This of course will have the reverse effect...
I've already sent an email do DoUgIe.
It's the first time I ever write to a company. Just goes to show how PO'ed I am at this...
I can only hope this email from Dividend Miles is some kind of hoax. There will be no reason for those of us on the East Coast, at least, to stick with the airline since most of our flights are short-haul. It already essentially takes 50,000 miles to get a roundtrip ticket, and even then you can rarely book direct flights on mainline aircraft. Let's see, how long will it take to get a free ticket with flights of say 275 miles a pop?
Programs: US1, AA Platinum, Hilton Gold, SPG Gold, Marriott Silver, Hertz 5*, Etc.
Posts: 361
I am constantly amazed by the underdeveloped ideas coming out of this management (and yes, I'm both a FF'er and stockholder). It's like watching someone play chess who is incapable of thinking a step ahead.
Charging $50 for an award ticket within 14 days of travel may create some marginal revenue, but it will also discourage many last-minute redemptions. As we all know, because US controls the allocation of award seats, it costs them almost nothing to give away a seat to burn off miles, since that seat would generally have gone empty anyway. We also know that once a plane has taken off, all the empty seats on that plane represent revenue lost forever - you can never get dollars for that seat, and you can never get miles off the books for that seat. Letting passengers burn up miles by filling empty seats on empty planes at the last minute is, in my opinion, a good business move. I don't know about you guys, but I will often at the last minute fly a relative up for the weekend on an empty regional jet -- burning 25,000 miles -- but I will not pay an extra $50 for the privilege of burning those miles.
Similarly, the continued devaluation of mileage will have its own consequences. For example, I have for the last several months been paying around $1200 roundtrip for flights from Philly to Richmond - a roundtrip of 396 miles - or over $3 per mile. In the past, I at least got 1000 miles roundtrip added to my DM account. Now that I only get 396 miles, I will either fly another airline (that will give me full mileage), take Amtrak (which will give me mileage credit), or drive the 4 hours. Does it seem a good idea to take away 604 FF miles in exchange for a $1200 loss in revenue?
Someone at US should have let these ideas marinate a bit longer.
I think US didn't quite think this one through, but I think their logic was:
-On their short haul flights they have lots of low yield connecting traffic who they have no need to incentivize with bonus miles, becuase they bought the connection because it was cheap, not because they wanted bonus miles. (I mean how many people actually are only flying RDU-CLT?)
- The high yield point-to-point traffic is just going to fly anyway because they like the Dividend Miles program, and really isn't going to notice losing a few miles here and there.
Personally I think the logic is faulty because they are punishing two very different groups of passengers, one group that has low value to the airline, and one group that has high value to the airline. Implementing a policy that is going to inflame your most loyal customers seems incredibly shortsighted, because, FWIW I'm not sure other airlines will match.
If I was AA, UA, and DL, I'd be looking at how I compete with Southwest's and JetBlue's FF program and would be very nervous about devaluing benefits for short haul passengers.
I think if an airline was smart, they'd start awarding mileage by O&D instead of point-to-point mileage. That way they'd solve the problem US is trying to solve without devaluing benefits for the most valuable passengers.
We'll see if this sticks. I bet it's just another dumb decision to come out of Tempe. (FWIW, I stopped flying US metal several years ago, even before I moved to Chicago.)
As a UA 1K, I fly US about 20 or so times a year now. This really hurts people on the shuttles.
I accumulate MP miles on my US flights and will be curious to see how this affects that.
I also accumulate MP miles on US flights. I will be 1K for transcon and international flights and will get Delta status for my East coast flights. I guess Delta is the winner of this fiasco.
This has already been picked up USA Today's - Today in the Sky. I think this things either going to picked up by the competition or dropped, but there is going to be reactions really quick.
I am exactly the kind of person this hurts. My normal route is MDT(Harrisburg, PA) to BDL (Hartford, CT).
I fly 4 segments a week, 2 of them on turboprops. None of my segments is over 250 miles. On my normal schedule I fly 1 segment with the opportunity to upgrade.
This policy will cut my mile accrual in half. It will be more inconvenient to fly another airline but bye bye US.
Programs: US1, AA Platinum, Hilton Gold, SPG Gold, Marriott Silver, Hertz 5*, Etc.
Posts: 361
I do find it interesting that they released two separate policy changes simultaneously. Is this so that when their customers get cheesed off about the changes, US can go back on one ("we listened to our customers, we were wrong, and we've changed back") and still keep the other?
Programs: CO Plat, AA tbd, US dirt, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Gold, Chairman and Cofounder, FFOCUS
Posts: 1,175
FFOCUS is mobilized over this issue. Again US shows its disdain for the frequent flier.
While UA's plan to charge for second bags is less than ideal, at least it is designed to get more revenue from people who historically pay the lowest fares. To penalize those of us who historically pay the highest fares, and the highest yields (most short trips yield $1.00 a mile or more) shows just how shortsighted they are.
Please visit the FFOCUS web site to learn how your voice can be heard.
This will not stand if we have anything to do with it.
What amazes me with this, is that the 500 miles (or 1,000 back then) minimum was made to PROMOTE short hauls, and fill up the smaller planes/smaller markets with people that normally wouldn't fly those segments (e.g. myself, flying CAE-CLT).
US may just be finding that they don't need to promote those shorter routes as much to fill their planes. There are a number of times when my flights from ROA-CLT are fuller than my flights from CLT on.
For me, this probably means more often driving to CLT rather than flying out of ROA. Ironically, I had just decided this year to cut back on driving to CLT, even if ROA flights costs a bit more, as I keep finding myself a few thousand miles from status at the end of the year. The 500 miles for a few ROA-CLT trips would have closed that gap.
