Originally Posted by channa
If the mileage accrual terms was point-to-point mileage for non-stop markets, some business could be pushed to competitors who didn't have non-stops. If UA will only give non-stop mileage for SFO-IAD since there are non-stops, and one could get more miles flying AA, CO, DL, NW, etc., a rule like this may discourage travel in these markets, and pehaps encourage hub residents to fly a competitor airline as their first choice.
This is a why I fly my monthly "mileage enhanced" RT to St. Louis on DL instead of NW.
NW has several direct MSP-STL flights daily and wants me to bleed if I take any other route. The mileage is < 500 each way.
On DL I normally go thru ATL (2812 miles RT) and have booked a couple for 3812 miles.
That's also why 2/3 of my domestic mileage runs have been on DL instead of NW -- I can add almost 2K miles by first going south to ATL before connecting to LAX or SFO.