Originally Posted by
wayan
Totally agreed in that UA Gold for life is a great value. E+, exit row, lane 1, and *A lounges - don't forget the lounges, which makes layovers bearable for me. However, I think Gold for life is the minimum that UA can offer for those of us who've flow this far on UA metal. MM also doesn't count the (probably) million miles I've flown on *A partners because the flight started on UA metal.
UA is losing what could be a huge low-cost, high-value marketing opportunity. Just image a plane full of customers seeing a big to-do over a MM - upgrades, free champagne, announcement over the PA - and just 10% of 200 pax deciding they too want to reach that milestone. That would be a direct boost to loyalty, sales, and stock price. But to your point, the days of airlines caring about us frequent flyers died when UA killed off the mileage part of Mileage Plus. I'll never do a mileage run again - that's for sure.
I suspect United doesn’t adopt this approach exactly because it doesn’t incentivize people into flying more. I’ve worked with dozens of colleagues who fly United; they know about the MM program and they want to reach a million mile tier. In terms of extra effort, they don’t expend in. They just hope it happens.