Originally Posted by
blug
Elite benefits may have been reduced but the value of UA miles is definitely not approaching zero, and is still one of the highest, if not the highest, in the industry.
Agreed. Mile redemption is a very strong point of the MP program.
Unfortunately for me, I'm one who doesn't value that as highly as upgrades, whose value has been greatly reduced.
If I fly > 100K BIS in a year, the last thing I want is more flights for free and I should be getting UG with RPU/GPU, so there's little remaining need to UG with miles.
From this perspective, the value that I'm getting is approaching zero.
Originally Posted by
DeaconFlyer
If it becomes more widespread, it would become akin to Southwest's model where benefits are based on spend.
If the lowest fares no longer earn PQMs, elite status would go to those who were actually profitable to UA. High spenders would benefit, once a year kettles wouldn't care, and those with restrictive budgets (corporate or otherwise) would feel the pain.
None of which is terrible. I just wish they'd stop sneaking in these little changes day by day. I wish they'd just design a comprehensive program, announce it to us comprehensively, and implement it reliably. Then, we can look at what we're dealing with and optimize our behavior against those known parameters.