Originally Posted by ctuttle
The other problem with the airlines is that many companies require their employees to use a certain carrier because of "negotiated rates". They give a discount to make sure they get a certain amount of corporate business. Until things get really bad as long as one airline offers the lowest fare the business isn't going to switch. The airline knows the customer isn't the person in the seat, but is instead in a boardroom, and as long as they keep that person happy there will always be people in the airline seat. This isn't the best way to run a business, unless of course you have that corporate deal sewed up so tightly that you don't need any other customers.
This is actually a very interesting point, one over which I sometimes wonder if things like bonuses on paid C/F fares really are rewarding the "wrong" person, given that in many corporate environments, the big determinant of whether or not a certain executive purchases on UA or AA is due to their corporate contracts and discounts, not due to the fact that either carrier is offering 15,000 bonus miles for paid F/A class and 10,000 bonus miles for paid C/D class to Japan, for example. The beneficiary is almost always (some companies don't allow employees to keep these mileage accounts earned on business travel and use them for leisure travel) the wrong person incentivized. Of course, the assumption is that these mileage bonuses are intended to incentivize or steer travel towards one airline.
I may be answering my own question here, but the only reason I see a need for these types of bonuses is ironically, so that these corporate executives decide to stay loyal on United for their pleasure travel, since they have so much invested in it, with hefty mileage balances anyway.