Jeff is also not paying a lot of attention to the super-long-term (which is understandable, I guess, in a biz driven by quarterly reports). But I am far, far, far from the only person on this board who has been nearly totally loyal to one airline for more than 20 years ... I joined MP in 1987 and since then I have flown 1 million b-i-s miles with United. In all those years, I have only flown non-United (and later non-*A) only when there were no other options -- I'd say, maybe 2 dozen flights total. In all those years, I have been in some major United hub cities, but I have also spent a number of years in cities that were horribly inconvenient to use United, and yet I did, detouring through Chicago or IAD.

IN my mind, this all has paid off rather well, cause the status benefits at United were quite impressive. I have flown dozens of free trips, and spent far, far more time in 1st than I would ever have imagined possible.

OK -- now it's true I'm not a high-rev passenger, but because of my work flexibility, I was filling seats on dead planes all the time -- mid-week, mid-day, lots and lots of Saturday flights, flying to Europe in the dead of winter, etc., etc ....

Without the FFP I would have chosen airlines on price first, schedule second, and I am sure I would have flown on United no more than maybe 25 percent of the 1 million bis miles I have in fact flown on United. I would never have made the (more than) occassional MR to catch the next tier -- and while these have not been huge revenue for United, they were, again, almost always on empty flights in dead periods of the year.

I have long assumed that the airlines would catch up with people like me and move from miles to dollars-spent, but I think that would be a mistake. I can certainly see the need to probably reset the mileage requirements, as the top tiers get more and more overfilled and can't provide much value. And I can certainly see the need to create revenue-determined pathways to highest tier. I could also understand if they set the automatic upgrades at 24 hrs for everyone, prioritized by some combination of status and fare paid to make it more attractive for the full-fare paying, last-minute flyer (who also has bis status). THose are incremental changes I won't like, but that I can live with.

But moving to keep the tiers, but add high spend requirements is probably the thing that will drive me, first, to any other major carrier still offering status for miles flown and, should the other majors follow (as they likely will) then it's off to the lower-cost, better-service options like Virgin America and Jet Blue (neither of which I have flown despite hearing great reports about both precisely because of my dogged loyalty to United.

If this major change comes to pass, I won't be surprised. I will be disappointed, though, and I would certainly hope Jeff and the gang are fully calculating the thousands of customers like me who have been this ridiculously loyal for decades (and likely would continue for decades to come).