Originally Posted by
willy702
Not surprised and he's absolutely right. And Peter is right to push back a little on the concept of trying to get to loyalty levels seen with the majors.
Loyalty on others for me means I get to board earlier and that's about all I get out of it. Upgrades? Please! I have been upgraded to first maybe 3 times on United, every time it was an hour long flight that was nearly empty. And that was with Silver and Gold for many years. Its pretty silly to see an upgrade list that you are in the 30s on.
I somewhat disagree. If you're exclusively talking about first class, upgrades can be hard but they are pretty dependent on route and time of day. I had pretty decent success as AA gold for years but I was not based at an AA hub. The majors all offer some sort of premium economy product, which comes with some food and drink benefits, as well. That was always a nice consolation... if the upgrade to first didn't clear, typically I could get a free upgrade to premium.
Frontier doesn't really offer a premium economy. Yeah, there's some rows with more leg room, but the seats aren't any more comfortable and they don't offer any free food or drinks if you're sitting in those seats. It will be very interesting to see what they offer in first once it's rolled out, and how difficult the upgrades are. I've had middling success securing upfront seats as a gold (20k) elite, so I share some of your pessimism.