Good job, beltway. Thanks for all your work on this promo.

I think two things that stick out to me are the situation with the financial institution and the people who blew the good thing craz had set up for us. The increased level of interest between GS10 and GS11 was pretty amazing. Once the bloggosphere got a hold of it, it brought in folks who really didn't have the frequent flier saavy to understand pretty well-settled rules on flyertalk about how to avoid these sorts of problems. If there is a GS12, I can imagine an even greater level of interest, as those who weren't quite ready for it this year gear up next year. I'd hate to see the threads on the promo treated like trick it or dollar coins, with codespeak and inside stories, but perhaps this is where we're headed on some of these.

My hunch is that GS12 is going to look considerably different from GS10 and GS11. With the bloggers pushing the crap out of it, I think it may prove a bit too expensive for US. The intention is to stimulate partner activity, but if everyone figures out how to get 100,000 miles with activity that only requires partners to have to buy 20,000 miles from US, it really isn't sustainable. Many of us guessed there would be increased minimums and limits this year, and we were fortunate that they were less significant than some of us expected. But, clearly, US is responding to partner feedback. They did away with the ability to get a hit on a cheap starwood dine. They increased hotel limits. Their creation of a hotel transfer minimum point hit at 850 was pretty clearly the result of communication with Hilton. And I would not be surprised if lifelock was a contributor to the new subscription rules. I think these sorts of rules are going to increase, not decrease, next year.

This year, some of the retail partners have clearly figured out that people have been able to get very low cost hits -- Biscoff, Vinesse, etc. I'm sure they will be giving feedback to US, and I think it's very unlikely we're going to see the $2.99 hit any more. I fear that teleflora's $30 minimum purchase rule implemented in the middle of the promo is the tip of the iceburg. This will be a much different promo next year. I think we're going to see higher minimums across the board, and maybe even on partners that would be a surprise -- like erewards and emiles.