Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
Frequent flyer programs are for the short - medium term. Trying / hoping for lifetime status from zero is a pointless exercise. In the medium - long term the ffp's will devalue and change the rules.
An increasing number of ffp's give little or nil ff miles for low priced tickets. That trend will continue. More ffp's are moving to a revenue based system. If you are flying high cost business or first class fares a little different.
The days of "complimentary seat upgrades (long haul), free flight tickets", and to a lesser extent "complimentary companion status" are long gone (~ a decade ago). Some airline-ffp's have complimentary seat upgrades for short haul.
USA based ffp's have been (and still are) more generous with perks than non USA based ffp's.
I see those types of perks are scarce but I wouldn't say they're completely gone. From what I've seen UA still offers complimentary companion status match and Delta has unlimited complimentary seat upgrades. They're the exception though. I do agree FFPs are usually short-term plays due to mileage expiry and possible rule changes but since I always use up my points anyways before their expiration it's not a major concern. So now that the short-term mileage points are taken care of I'm trying to figure out where to stack the long term lifetime mileage aspect of it. Non US based FFPs do look more generous than US based ones generally I agree.