Originally Posted by
NiceLanding
IMO a retroactive recalculation under a different set of rules is far less fair than it may seem to be at first glance, as demonstrated with the CO/UA fiasco. Those who care about MM miles tend to adjust their behavior to fit the rules in place at the time, thereby reducing the value of such a recalculation for them. The biggest benefit then goes to those who did not behave as the airline originally intended and now get rewarded for their disloyalty.
If there really is a big difference in value for one airline's MM miles over the other's, I think the better way to handle it is simply an across-the-board conversion factor. For example, 1 DM MM mile converts to 1.25 AA MM miles.
The underlying reason for the outcry from UA's "legacy" million milers was because they were stripped of benefits promised to them (2 regionals per year) when they earned their UA Million Miler status, and those who were within reaching distance of the 2MM PMUA brass ring had the lifetime United Club benefit yanked out from under them.
United's response to the outcry was that the new Million Miler program offered a richer benefit in the spousal/partner status match. Unfortunately, single people and households where both partners were million milers and earned the same level of status individually lost their promised regionals, with nothing to gain in return. In addition, United does not allow you to confer the status match onto anybody but a spouse or a significant other living at the same address. Sure, people can claim that their child or roommate is really their spouse/SO, but it does violate the MP T&C's.
United's huge mistake was to not give MM'ers the choice of either the 2 regionals or the spousal match, and to not grandfather in those PMUA 1MM'ers who had been working toward 2MM status and the lifetime UC membership.
US's Million Miler program is weaker than AA's. I see nothing wrong with AA keeping the Million Miler program intact, but adjusting the DM members' balances to at least include partner EQM's, if not all earned miles until December, 2011. This would result in the least number of dissatisfied customers.