Originally Posted by
char777
I find it a bit strange that a day later, nobody seems to have a definitive answer on whether JBLU flights will earn PQP/PQF. If not, then this really does very little for me as a west coast flier.
I still struggle to see what JBLU as a company gets out of this that is positive. If I were running that airline, I wouldn't care about 'retimings' at EWR (whatever that means), I wouldn't want to give UA some JFK slots, and I wouldn't want my passengers sampling UA. The big prize for UA is obvious, as getting back into JFK is great, but not until 2027?
The whole deal feels a bit lame, but I guess we always knew it was going to be.
Originally Posted by
jsloan
The only part that’s strange to me is that B6 has already announced that UA flights can accrue Tiles in their program, but UA hasn’t said anything. If the flights will not earn PQP, don’t expect any announcement at all — there was never an explicit negative announcement about Emirates flights. We don’t even have a start date for RDM earning at this point.
Under an assumption that revenue flights on UA credited to B6 create a payment to B6 (and vice versa) and that award flights on UA from TrueBlue create a payment to UA (and vice versa), I would expect that the overall balance of payments in those flows will be UA paying B6:
* B6 adds a lot of connectivity via UA: that connectivity means folks in BOS/NYC flying UA revenue and crediting to B6. There aren't many markets for UA flyers that are opened up via B6: I'd expect that buying B6 flights credited to UA will be rare (especially absent PQP, MM, etc.).
* Conversely on award tickets, I don't think using B6 points to book UA flights will be that appealing: unless and until B6 joins *A (to be fair, *A seems to overall be more hospitable to narrow-body-based mostly shorter-haul airlines than the other alliances) it's not like B6 points will be usable on LH/NH/AC/etc., so the longhaul options opened up for B6 points are basically the smaller European markets through EWR. But B6 does have a leisure network out of FLL: booking a UA flight to FLL connecting to B6 to the islands could be more appealing out of ORD/IAD than connecting in EWR, especially if using UA miles.
Beyond any cash being exchanged for JFK slots much less Paisly, it seems likely that the cash-flow-challenged airline getting a steady net flow of operating cash from UA is a positive for them. If UA is paying B6 $10 for a B6 flier booking UA to fly BOS-ORD-DSM, that's likely more profit than B6 gets from flying someone on a $200-ish ticket.