Originally Posted by
Lllahim
1. I know there is a strong correlation between spend and mileage. That is why many Airlines use mileage as a surrogate for spend. There are probably outliers in the fit but as the case with outliers, they constitute a negligible percentage of the total population.
2. It is a myth that most SEs buy the cheapest upgradable fares. On the contrary, this group includes some of the most sophisticated travelers. Many buy expensive fares such as B and O to improve their upgrade chances on long haul trips. They actually want to upgrade at booking. They are lots out there who buy J, Z, C....AC knows that the so-called bottom feeder group is too small to base policy.
2. If one spends 30K+ on fares annually, surely it should not be too difficult to squeeze SE out of that budget. There are plenty of suggestions on FT on how that is done.
3. I am one of those who dislike cutbacks on mid-tier benefits. I stand against SEs who believe such cuts advantage them. They don't in the long run. For example, by introducing co-pay at the 50K level, AC added co-pay to its MM program. Now, SEMMers are upset. I hope mid-tiers don't campaign against SE qualification/benefits. Who knows, they may accidently find themselves there.
I hear ya, and didn't want to suggest for a moment that most SE were in that category but from various posts on here there certainly seems to be many that do. It was actually the posts by yyzp recently flouting how easy and relatively cheap it was to get 1k/SE that got me thinking about it.
Me personally - I suppose I could eek out SE with my spend but I don't do anything to add mileage - it's straight there and back, the simplest and fastest route for me and the most I've been able to attain in mileage is 75K a few years back. I don't know how some of you guys do it without going stir crazy! (that's also why you should get the top benefits of course - legitimate frequent fliers that is, not bottom feeders)
I definitely would not want SE's to lose benefits and I'm not suggesting that - so long as they are truly legitimate valuable AC SE's.
BTW you have got the right idea too about the erosion of mid-tier benefits - you guys may not always be pulling SE mileage either.......................
Anyhow I would still be interested in Ben Smiths perspective on the erosion of mid-tiers in my kind of situation.