Randy,

I started thinking about this yesterday as I was on UA #6, a 767-200 from SFO to JFK. I upgraded to Business Class, which was completely full. The FA came around to take the dinner order. On United they generally ask in order of Mileage Plus status as indicated on the manifest. On this flight, there were so many 1K's in Business that not all of them got their choice of meal. (I'm only a 1P so I had no chance anyway). Granted that United can do a better job estimating demand for popular entrees - but that's a separate subject.

Flying 100,000 miles a year (or 100 segments) is certainly a lot of flying. But it seems that doing this and making a FF program's highest tier is increasingly commonplace judging by the number of top level elites that are on a given flight, especially out of a carrier's hub city.

U.S. based carriers generally seem to have standardized on a 3 tiered approach to elite membership. Even though there are differences between each program, tier status is generally granted based on flying 25,000, 50,000 or 100,000 miles in a calendar year. (I'm purposely ignoring Comps, Challenges, Revenue based status, etc.) I am assuming that this 3 tier model was implemented back in the 1980's when flying 100,000 miles was probably not as often an occurence as it is now.

Given that the airlines might have a good number of customers who fly in excess of 100K a year do you see potential for adding a fourth tier, say at 150k or 200k?

Maybe there is statistical evidence that most of the frequent-flyer "bell curve" is covered by 100k or less miles per year, but I've seen anecdotal evidence on Flyertalk of truly heavy flyers making top tier in one program, say by June, and then they direct their business to another carrier to build status in that program because there is nothing more to gain that year from the first carrier's program which they maxed out.

Just curious as to your take on this.

Thanks,
Drew