OK, Premex, I agree that if there was other ways of rewarding people who pay full fare, etc, that would work too. That happens periodically in those full fare double mile bonuses. I've earned about 20k extra miles this way by spending about three-four times as much as the average RT, so around $8000 more. Not a good deal IMHO. Most of these times I flew coach w/o any or slim chance to get into first.

I do think that a guy paying one full fare round trip should not get elite, or anything that low. But I am/would be somewhat upset if I flew 40 full fare short-hop non-stop roundtrips, let's say at about $600 a pop, spending $24,000 and getting on USAirways Preferred Plus. On the other hand, someone else flew the same 40 round-trips at an average discount fare of $200, plus five more. This person would be Chairman's Preferred after spending $1000 on the airline.

Now, if there was some other concrete benefit offered, I think everyone could be happy. But that's not the case. Given that, I think consideration should be given for the person who spent 24 times as much and only flew a handful of trips less.

My only point is that some consideration should be given to fare paid, but I think the ideal system should combine it with actual flight miles/segments, so if a high paying business passenger is close -- 10%? 15%? -- to an elite level they get bumped up.

I haven't reviewed TWA's or AA's elite for money programs, but if they are sufficiently high then that's fair too, but not as much as a combined system. In the end, it's probably just too complicated.

I paid $2200 R/T once to fly to Los Angeles coach. No upgrades possible even though first class was wide open. That just sucked, considering a few months down the road I flew the same route for $300 R/T and sat up front.

I care most about segment qualification personally; till this year USAirways did not even offer that. They changed it just in time for me since I would not have made the top tier otherwise.

BTW, I am using the example of the all full-fare traveller vs the all discounted fare traveller as an extreme example. Reality is obviously a mix. This year I flew 90% of my flights full fare. Next year I expect maybe about 40%.


[This message has been edited by dg1 (edited 12-02-1999).]