Originally Posted by
rucksack
So you're saying that it's moronic to choose the airline in your home market that has the most nonstop flights
Most nonstop flights is an entirely different rationale than loyalty program.
All else being equal, I'd prefer a nonstop to a connection.
All else is rarely equal. If I have a choice of nonstop flight between three different airlines in the same O&D, I don't want the most nonstop flights. I want the BEST nonstop flight.
Of course, back to my point that all else is rarely equal, if I have a choice of nonstop to a West Coast city versus DFW-LAX-XXX with the first segment in paid first on a 777/787, I'm not taking the nonstop! Similarly, if NK DFW-LAS nonstop in BFS is cheaper than DFW-LAS in Y on AA, well, hello Spirit.
Your original point was that you let the loyalty tail wag the dog. Yes, that is moronic. Picking schedule/convenience is fine. It's also not the same thing as loyalty program loyalty.
allows you to most easily consolidate your spend to get the benefits of status,
What benefits of status? There are precious few in this day and age. Want first? Buy first!
and has better IRROPS recovery vs. other airlines in that market?
In the case of people based in AA hubs, we've seen evidence that AA's IRROPS recovery is WORSE than most other airlines serving those hubs. Had our poor Ian been willing to fly Delta DFW-LAX (nonstop, by the way), he could have made his meeting in Long Beach!
Originally Posted by
rucksack
I’ve refused to fly Spirit, though, because their limited frequency (sometimes only once a day) means that if anything goes wrong I may not reach my destination until days later, if at all.
Have you been following AA recently?
With load factors as high as they are and service as bad as it is on American, though, I don’t know I’d want to encounter IRROPs on American either if I didn’t have status.
Dirty little secret: your status really doesn't amount to a hill of beans when AA's operation goes down the toilet. As it often does.
Not to pick on our Frisco friend but, again, for all his precious AA status he still wound up at home in his own bed Tuesday night rather than in a SoCal hotel room...