Surely it makes sense for airlines to retain their own frequent flyer programs to be able to effectively target their local markets? There must be a lot of examples where this aplicable, but the biggest one I can see is the issue of upgrades. The US programs (such as UA MP) all have upgrades, both using mileage and for elites. UA could not do away with this benefit as it would put them at a big competetive disadvantage vis a vis AA, etc. However, in programs in the rest of the world, upgrades seem to be much less common, or non-existant. Take British Midland, another Star-Alliance partner, where you need to be gold elite (top tier) to have any opportunity to upgrade at all.

Standardizing these two programs would seem almost impossible, because there would have to be a huge change in the culture of at least one of them. Moreover, the two programs use totally different methods of point accrual, have very different reward charts, different methods of acquiring elite status.

Thus, if you wish to have a single program you have to throw away the map and start again and you have to radically change the terms and conditions for most of the members around the world. You can not reasonably use one single airline's program as your basis. Also, if you are having a true alliance-wide program, you can't really follow the example of BA and allow US based members to have upgrades and other to whistle (that just causes resentment). Therefore, I think that Peter's idea, taken to the fullest extreme, is unlikely.

Moreover, we live in an age of personalization. That is most easily achieved at the local level where people (should) understand the local business cluture, market etc. It would be a lot harder in a unfied alliance-wide program.


[This message has been edited by james (edited 08-26-2000).]