Originally Posted by iriefrank
On another note, and let me make clear that this is in no way a personal attack, I've quickly grown tired of these "CO was too expensive, XX got my $$" threads. Who cares, really? No, stop and think about that: who cares? I hate to ask this question, but really, this is ridiculous. It's just an opportunity for people to complain about upgrades or whatever else comes to mind. Yeah, CO is charging more these days. Yeah, sometimes other carriers aren't. It's a market. Sometimes you buy one thing, sometimes you buy another.
I agree with you that it's a market. But if it's a market then the buyer will make decisions based on his/her self interest.
I'm only discussing my own experiences, of course, but last week I flew NYC-DEN. The lowest fare I could find on CO was about $840 while UA got me there for $469.
This week I need to buy a ticket to go to Houston (with two weeks advance purchase, btw) and the best fare on CO was $818 while ATAcame in at less than half the price.
Who cares? The people who should care the most are the people running CO. Of course, for now there is no problem because they're still filling their planes.
But there is a definite tarnish in the luster of CO and it boils down to a constant whittling down the level of value provided to customers, especially the most loyal ones, and a very aggressive increase in the cost of the product.
The result? What incentive is there to fly CO? Virtually no more upgrades, miles that are extremely difficult if not impossible to use, a nice website but that has constant "glitches" that make it hard to book reward travel and often don't list the least expensive fares, downgraded service on the elite phone lines, increased fees in the category of nickel and diming. Little things like the fact that one can no longer make a reservation and hold it for 24 hrs without paying for it first and then requesting a refund, etc.
In the past I often paid hundreds of dollars more than the cheapest fare in order to have a chance to qualify for these benefits. But if the benefits are essentially non-existent, why would anyone spend twice as much money for what is an equivalent commodity product?
And then there is the issue of the inadequacy of CO's coach cabin, with its industry-minimum 31" seat pitch and its planes constantly filled to the rafters.
What benefit is there in flying CO other than the fact it might be the only choise in the hub city you happen to live in?
In fact, I think this topic concerns anyone who constantly flies CO and had made a commitment to fly the airline. While the reduction in benefits may come in dribs and drabs, after a while you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself: "Why am I flying CO?"
I agree with the poster who wrote that there is absolutely no benefit in going beyond the silver op elite level.
Ultimately, the current management has made the decision to essentially reduce the benefits of the loyalty program in order to bolster the short-term bottom line.
But alienating a company's most loyal customers is not a good business practice. I am only one customer and am obviously not missed, but I have already flown nearly 40,000 miles on jetBlue this year, mileage that I would have flown exclusively on CO in previous years.
Multiply that by a few hundred thousand passengers and what is CO left with? The leisure flyers choosing their airline on a purely commodity basis. It's a rush to the bottom and it's bad news for the long-term profitability of the airline.