Originally Posted by
AlastairGordon
I’m happy too, as someone who tends to fly less frequently but usually on more expensive tickets. It seems to me like the new system has much more economic logic to it. When you think about it, why would an airline want to favor someone who flies 25 times in a year, spending $200 per ticket, over someone who flies once on a $5000 ticket? Most on Flyertalk don’t like the change, which is understandable because a large part of the community is all about optimizing the old, illogical system for their own benefit (“mileage runs” being a prime example; I suspect we won’t hear so much about “dollar runs” going forward). Also, the whole system of upgrades based on status is weird when you think about it. Imagine a restaurant saying the way to get steak is to be a very frequent customer, and when you arrive, if you are lucky, you might get “upgraded” from chicken to steak. Just sell steak to those who want steak, and those who want first class seats (as I usually do) can pay for them. And the logical way to deal with unoccupied first class seats is to have people bid for them at the gate, with cash, on the app. I made AA EXP last year based purely on credit card spend and I was almost completely unaffected, because I’m still not going to buy a coach seat and take a chance on getting upgraded when I can just buy a seat in first and guarantee that my whole party will be sitting together.
You're not wrong about the economic logic, especially in today's environment. But there's more at play. Airlines in the past have considered it necessary to develop customer loyalty to the airline. In part due to cyclical periods of travel, in part due to captive customer theories, etc. DL appears to be changing course pretty drastically and in a single change to the program. I personally don't think there's anything morally good or bad about companies that try to engender loyalty and those that don't. The gas station isn't focused on customer loyalty. They're focused on the best location they can put their gas station, on the best corner, on the best side of the street. Their customers will come to them because they're there, and they offer the best option. And they offer the best option to the person who's driven down that freeway 10k times and has to often get gas, just as they are the best option to the person that's only going to drive down the freeway once in their life and happens to need gas at that time. This certainly doesn't make the gas station a mean, immoral, or ethically challenged. It's simply how they choose to get customers. While emotions can affect your loyalty, loyalty itself is not an emotion. And DL seems to be changing from an airline that in the past has attempted to engender customer loyalty, and now is not particularly focused on customer loyalty. It doesn't make them a bad company. It doesn't mean people should get fired. It's, what I consider to be, a
bold move.
This is certainly not to say that DL doesn't want loyal customers. It's just saying "we already have enough loyal customers, we can lose some and be fine, and even though we don't specifically incentivize loyalty, there will be people who our program does incentivize, and those people will stay loyal/(hopefully) become loyal to DL."