Originally Posted by dronofrio

A cut and paste of the e-mail I sent 1KVoice earlier today.

Dear United Airlines 1K,

I have been a long time United customer and have, for the many past years, been a loyal 1K member.

I have closely followed the changes your company is making leading up to a final merger with Continental and I must say that from my perspective the benefits of being a loyal frequent flyer are being slowly eliminated.

I was quite disappointed when booking class upgrade fare code limitations were introduced. Since the introduction of these limitations I have flown quite a number of international itineraries and I have yet to take a flight that qualified for a Systemwide or Regional upgrade. This particular limitation has rendered these upgrade awards nearly useless.

Flight class upgrades notwithstanding, I remained a reasonably happy 1K member because my dedication to travel on United allowed me to take advantage of other important travel benefits such as priority check-in, baggage handling and boarding. Your recent announcement of changes to the priority boarding process, which were "advertised" as an additional benefit of the United/Continental merger, further diminishes the value of being a 1K member. Where, in the past, a 1K member enjoyed priority check-in and boarding over lower tier Gold members it now appears that all frequent flyers, regardless of qualifying level, have been granted the same benefit. While I appreciate having check-in and boarding priority it seems that I need not be a 1K member to enjoy this benefit.

While it appears that many of the frequent flyer benefits will remain intact following this merger, it is clear that there is much less differentiation between the various Elite qualifying tiers. For me, the end result of these changes will be that I will no longer select a more expensive Star Alliance flight over that of another carrier since I can take advantage of the Star Alliance Elite benefits at a lower tier (for example flying 50K miles instead of 100K).

I am certain there are good business reasons behind the changes that are being introduced but I felt it important to provide you with the opinion of one formerly very satisfied frequent flyer. With these changes the Star Alliance stands to lose at least half of my quite significant annual travel expenditures. I no longer have a compelling reason for selecting United or a Star Alliance partner as my airline of choice.

I am hopeful that my opinion will help you to better understand the needs of your customers and not be viewed as just another annoying complaint.

Respectfully,