Originally Posted by
bwoodlandca
Let me see if I understand this correctly:
An airline creates a miles program to encourage loyalty and return business.
The program is designed so that loyal customers earn miles.
Miles can be used to book future flights.
When the loyal customer attempts to use those miles, 10 months in advance, there are no awards seats available.
When the loyal customer then tries to use miles to upgrade, he is charged the economy seat price, plus 40k miles, then on top of that he is charged $1,100 to use those miles that he has earned. That is almost double the cost of the original economy seat.
Can anyone justify this as encouraging loyalty not to mention breaking an agreement that miles can be used for future flights?
How does this encourage loyalty?
Well, I used to feel like you do back with CO. No way would I pay as much for u/g as for the ticket. PLUS miles.
Then I flew in lie flat bed seat, and since paid for several ca
$h and miles to fly in Biz and not suffer for 12 plus hours in coach, a couple of times paying MORE for u/g that original ticket.
But I do agree that it's infuriating when you want to use your miles, or in my case GPU to upgrade to Biz using a 50% more expensive fare than what's available only to find that upgrade at time of ticketng is not available (but of course we already have a whole thread on that
).
Sure, I can hope that if I pay extra for the upgradable fare the u/g to Biz will clear, much like you can hope not enough Biz seats will be sold and UA will make the saver award available for booking.
And you too can play the gamble: Pay for standard award and waitlist for saver. If UA releases same, you will get half your miles back, otherwise you lose and pay the original amount.
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