Originally Posted by
jimrgraham
Maybe I'm not the average *P traveller, but there have to be 100's (1,000's?) of us that would appreciate and PAY for the benefits.
We're being nicked everywhere else - (look at your cell phone or utility bill). At least with some stuff like this, the time will be more enjoyable and go by faster.
Even better, I think a lot of businesses would be very OK with allowing their business travellers to expense those extra $25 for a bit more comfort and service. Leisure travellers could also be tempted, and if the price is OK, it could be much more of a money maker then the bag-fees.
Originally Posted by
mybagfits
As someone said, "they need to decide, are we a low cost carrier or a legacy. In between just doesn't work" I may be paraphrasing but I think thats such an important point.
IN many regards, we get some of the legacy perks, but not all (no elite boarding, bad international offering and FC/Envoy compared)
And the more US lags in treating their elites, the greater the gap with the other carriers will become, thus the more insurmountable the task of closing that gap.
Originally Posted by
SOBE ER DOC
5. Jump alliances and consider either OW or ST. OW makes the most sense as there is little route overlap with AA but ST offers best potential for growth of pax from international markets and codeshares with intl's carriers such as KL and AF. As a part of this, seek anti-trust immunity with int'l carriers. OW would offer BA and IB as best options.
AF/KL and DL are the dominants within SkyTeam, and are very tightly integrating all kinds of routes. US would play an ever smaller role then CO did in SkyTeam, and would basically wither and die is my take on it, AF/KL do not play nice.
BA has a lot of history with (old) US, so I don't know how that would play out, but for the passengers it would devaluate the connecting network to/from Europe tremendously. You'd only have BA/IB hubs, with much less (viable / valuable) options from my point of view.
Originally Posted by
mybagfits
I imagine its like a referral fee right? If I fly say Continental, they get the fair but US air has to give me EQM in Dividend Miles right? So Does CO pay a per mile fee to US as the referral?
CO pays US for the miles AFAIK, probably buys them in bulk under some Star Alliance common set of rules, but that's also why there's this whole matrix of which fare classes on which carrier get which miles. It usually is the flown carrier that decides whether they want to award miles, although the Frequent Flyer Programme carrier can also have some say in it. For example, I flew segments on KL, which KL only gave 50% EQM's on, but CO gave 100%...
Selling (non-status!) miles usually is a money maker for airlines, probably also one of the reasons US is having all kinds of related promotions, hawking creditcards etc. ... On the other hand, US has also been quoted as seeing all those miles people are banking as liabilities, which would explain the hike in US redemption levels (Star Alliance only went up slightly in comparison)...
Originally Posted by
mybagfits
Still would like to hear more views on the right alliance
The Star Alliance is viewed as being the best alliance. For me as a passenger it's the most valuable. You don't need to be top-tier to get top-alliance benefits, and the benefits are (supposed to be) pretty much the same across all carriers.
The route network in the Star Alliance works best for me, being EU based and flying to the USA and within the EU, redemption options on the Star Alliance with US miles are generally seen as a very good thing (probably one of the big things keeping a lot of USA people still there including credit cards!), etc.
SkyTeam for me would mean dealing with AF/KL, and Flying Blue now has gone to a model where you not only get 25% award/redeemable miles on all but the very expensive tickets, but also only 25% level/status miles! CO had something similar if you didn't book through CO on the very cheap economy tickets, they changed that with entry into SkyTeam, and it probably will get them extra business. DL/NW sounds like an OK carrier, but a lot of friends and colleagues are not liking the demise of NW, and service wise I can't blame them...
OneWorld means you get LHR thrown into the mix for Europe, which well, is a hit or miss, and I'm still recovering from (historical) misses... I know plenty of UK based people who have better flight options from their UK bases to SkyTeam or Star Alliance hubs too...
I think that route and carrier wise, Star Alliance still is a very good fit, however US will need to shape up, to still be an option for people flying Star Alliance, or to be considered one by the carriers themselves. Participating in the Star Alliance upgrades programme would for example be a very good example, giving more value to ones US miles...
Others will probably be able to spew more examples/reasons...