Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
Frankly, I could not disagree with you more. There's years of legacy on this board of unpleasant speculation regarding the future of airlines and the future of frequent flyer programs. Does anyone think we wouldn't have been engaged in wild speculation back when Eastern fell apart if the boards had been around? It comes alongside the good speculation, but it is there.
I also think this is a question of an inevitable collision...we know something is going to happen, just not what. We're guessing at what the something will be, likely hoping for something that shakes out well for us...but I think we also know that if there's no airline, there's no FFP.
Likewise, for many of us the question of making various statuses is worth up to a few thousand dollars in benefits due to flexible change policies, lounge access, RDMs, better seats, and the like. I'm ignoring comp-ups (something that I don't calculate as part of the equation), but it is very easy to see how this actually seriously matters to medium-to-high frequency travelers who will likely be doing extensive travel next year almost regardless of what happens in the next few weeks.
Finally, a lot of us are also under stress watching the world get shaken in a way it hasn't been in over a century. I think indulging in speculation about how this is all gonna shake out in ways that don't involve life and death is perhaps a relatively tame way to cope?
Well said. At some point things will start getting back to normal. Things may not be back to the same "normal" we experienced before, but a "normal" nonetheless. It is wise to begin planning now for the various scenarios of what "normal" might look like, because those who wait to find out what normal will look like and then react, rather than going in with a plan of how to adapt to the various scenarios as they emerge in real time, will absolutely fail. If you are an individual, you may lose your job or career and if you are a business you might go under. My job is 100% safe, but my wife's is not. Planning now for the scenarios of going back to work as normal, what to do if hours are cut, and what the fallback plan is if she loses her job completely saves a lot of stress and I am super proud of her for how well she is handling what could be a very stressful time. Remembering that life will go back to normal and planning for the spectrum of what life holds once it does, helps us keep our sanity and I recommend others do the same.