<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jim Phillips:
Whether or not CO has a specific 'runner tracking' module for their frequent flyer database analysis apparently they are doing some kind of (aggregate?) tracking which has identified 'runners' to the extent that it has led to the 2004 OnePass program changes which I think and hope will blow up in CO's face.
I remember reading in Harvard Business Review a year or so ago (by the way, as a self-made businessman, my worst employees have been MBA's (think they always know better, but just don't roll up their sleeves and do what it takes to get the job done which is what it's all about. But being self-made does not mean that I can not read about the latest pedantic proscriptions for a decidedly non-academic sport) some write up about "are your most valubale customers costing you more than they're worth" which I can not help but think got its way to some middle-manager at CO and DL marketing who is trying to show upper management that yes! they too can not only read but even understand Ivy League ivory tower academic tripe.
In it was some four-square matrix which established customers along parameters of "loyalty" and "cost/revenue generation." It pontificated that some loyal customers are in fact better off not being retained.
Like so much of this horse**** and the consultants who read it, it's great cocktail conversation (though that's no party I'd care to attend), but real life don't work that way, not in the least in the case of the airlines who by Gordo's own mouth every scrapping nickel and dime is needed.
So on the assumption that somebody out there is beeming over the joy of putting cutting-edge management research 
into practice, somebody probably did a data mine and fit the results according to the constructs established in that paper and Presto! you have ScamPass and SuckMiles 2004. I can't wait for the 'paradigm shift' in the 're-alignment of the enterprise of aviation transportation' in 2005, which I am prognosticating will involve some abomination of a merger between CO/DL/NW whose DOJ approval will be expedited due to poor financial consideration spurred in part by defection of patronage to their competitors who offer better frequent flyer program perks. Wasn't Gordon the guy who said of the AA/TW merger that you put the #1 airline together with the #3 and you get #13? Methinks that'll be the glorious comeuppance and the industry consolidation that Gordo has been clamoring for as the victor of the poetic justice espoused of his own big bad mouth.
[This message has been edited by Jim Phillips (edited Nov 16, 2003).]</font>
Maybe the merger that you talk about if some people at CO left. If possible maybe things would improve at CO as far as the FF is concerned. If not myabe NW will take over and hopefully they aren't blinded by the stupidity.