Originally Posted by Efrem
While the previous post is more or less the way most major U.S. airlines work, there's a great deal of variation worldwide. Many airlines put a premium on how much revenue you mean to them, usually by giving more status credit for higher paid fare levels.
Too true...as a UA gold flying on international award travel I was treated very well on Air New Zealand, including an operational upgrade or two. But I got to talking with one of their FFs about the Airpoints program and pretty quickly determined I wouldn't do well at all under something like that. Non-U.S. carriers without lots of promo tie-ins or as long a legacy of using miles are freer to try different models, but I think when they do it's a case of taking five pounds of flesh from the low-revs and maybe giving three to the high-revs.