Originally Posted by
rankourabu
Leisure flyers, and out-of-pocket flyers are toast as elites.
This will boil the elite ranks down to mostly business flyers who expense their travel and don't care if they spend for a higher / costlier fare class than they have to. That leaves me out -- I'm an independent consultant who has to watch his travel costs. I think I spent about $10,000 in 2012 to fly 125k, 83k on UA and *A partners.
No way in hell I'm going to concentrate 2014 spend on UA metal given the dismissable "benefits" of Silver or Gold and the frustration of dealing with United.
The cost of meeting the new thresholds far exceed the value of the rewards.
Originally Posted by
mecabq
The devaluation of the alliance relationship is the most surprising thing about this.
Especially with US leaving. AC, LH/LX, NH and others with significant presence in the USA must not be pleased. This is much more restrictive than the DL-AF-KL deal that comes with DL's PQD rules.
This essentially blows up the core Star Alliance proposition.
Originally Posted by
chavala
Maybe being 1K will mean something again.
Originally Posted by
Plane-is-home
I have to confess, this is a change I like. I just wish the spending limits were a little higher. I turn lets hope for improved elite benefits down the road.
Don't make me laugh, you guys throwing other people's money at United. Your CPU rate's not going to improve, F cabin service isn't going to improve, they aren't going to shower you with GPUs or gift baskets. The whole UA proposition is getting more expensive and less attractive for everybody. As the astute
as219 says:
Originally Posted by
as219
The name of the game here is revenue enhancing, not benefit enhancing. Over the past decade, we have witnessed decimation of capacity that the majors always wanted but could never bring about on their own in the absence of a down economy. Now that fewer airlines are flying fewer planes, they don't have to give away elite benefits to any but the higgest HVFs. Where are elites going to go when UA, AA and DL are the only airlines left offering international premium products?
When we go overseas, we ex-elites are going to fly better-quality airlines based overseas. At home we'll either fly whomever is cheapest or treat ourselves to VX.
But the rocket scientists at UA who think we'll pay more than necessary to fly an airline that offers much less than its competitors are going to get schooled about the law of unintended consequences.