Originally Posted by
sebastiansw3
As the Head of Corporate Travel for a large company you'd perhaps expect that I have a different perspective. I would certainly disagree with your view that an individual regularly spending with CX is more valuable than the continued retention of the account belonging to a large company. In terms of corporate travel my department has managed annual spend in excess of US$250M. A significant proportion of that to airlines and a substantial amount to CX alone. That revenue reoccurs year on year and dwarfs individual spending many times over. I expect CX to reward the loyalty of not just my company but also those members of our staff who travel. My department regularly benchmarks satisfaction levels within our staff and I wouldn't hesitate to place a contract on review if colleagues were unhappy in any way.
Thanks for your perspective. Much appreciated.
I guess if this is the route CX chooses, they are going to lose my business. Hard for me to argue otherwise. You make a compelling point. I would say it is in line with the "seat" argument I made above, although I clearly overlooked the competitive nature of corporate contracts.
That said, ive spent between 15k usd on my lowest year to 150k usd or so on my highest year for going on 8 years as DM with CX. This year my travel spend has increased significantly, but i doubt ill top 25k usd of revenue on CX/KA in 2015. Maybe even closer to 20k depending how i book some upcoming travel. Fyi, my 2015 total travel spend will be between 55 and 75k USD depending how the 4th quarter shakes out. So CX/KA will earn less than half my annual travel revenue this year....unfathomable to me a few years ago!
The reason is basically the timing of my frequent flier "enlightenment" combined with expansion and upgrading of competitors. This "enlightenment" is directly related to the (relatively) uncompetitive nature of AM/MPC, particularly regarding me as an individual personally paying for all my tickets. I recently discovered I've been a relative fool to stash all my miles with AM for so long, and also a fool for not to test the competition. Both mistakes are on me....especially given I use FT, even more inexcusable for me not to pay attention to any other forums but this one! Either way, if CX keeps its program clearly geared towards the corporate at the expense of the individual (ie, appeasing the seat owner and not the seat occupier), it just doesn't make sense for me to be as loyal as I have been. I certainly don't see the benefits that a corporate can score given its scale of contract vs the insignificance of my business as one individual. And for many reasons we have discussed elsewhere, the "pros" of MPC point to a program geared towards corporates. It is a solid program in that sense.
I guess the guys rejiggering MPC can consider it all. I do think a relatively "easy" way to get the best of both worlds is simply offer some form of targeted lifetime membership, without changing the corporate side you face. If someone like the OP of this intriguing thread, or wasabi tofu, or janes addiction have been DM for xx years, chances are they are not doing it within a single corporate but have been loyal to CX across corporate platforms OR perhaps as an individual, presumably a business owner themselves. This would indicate some level of significant individual loyalty that is, collectively, valuable to CX.
I must admit, individually we are ants compared to your corporate budget....but together I suspect we have at least respectable buying power. My bet is while individually we are squat compared to your budget, the average long-term DM traveler like ourselves has a significantly higher annual revenue contribution to CX than the average corporate worker. Our problem is we simply lack any scale whatsoever as a group...we are woefully fragmented and thus have very little leverage over CX. But as individuals, I am fairly confident we can spend more than the average Joe. The discovery that my personal dollar can go farther elsewhere has led me to EK, BR and SQ this year....and I am not disappointed!
Anyway I am grateful for your perspective thank you for adding it. Would be keen for any more thoughts.