I don't know how many "very frequent flyers" use B6, but I'd like to think I might be the type of traveler that B6 would want to keep.

I travel mainly for work, but am asked to keep my costs down when possible. I probably travel about 30K a year for business, and maybe 3-5K for pleasure. Over the past 2 fiscal years, I have racked up 100 TrueBlue points. I also have banked miles with both US and DL when I can't use B6.

Each year, I have been very strategic about picking B6. I choose B6 when I projected enough B6 flying to earn the 100 points. I have traveled transcon on B6 for free two times now. I will do the same strategic decision making over this year. Its still not clear to me if I will be "loyal" to B6 this next fiscal year.

I probably would have earned 25000 with another carrier each of the past 2 years, but even had I earned status with US or DL, it would have been at the lowest tier. When the choice was between a legacy ( lowest tier status, with awful connections), versus B6, I picked B6.

My sense is that those who can earn higher tier status on a legacy carrier would never pick B6 as the carrier of choice. The lowest tier at US or DL just isn't worth it to me when I know that I won't really get any upgrades, and the mileage bonus isn't so large as to make me pick the good customer service experience that (in most cases) B6 has offered to me.

If B6 wants more frequent, but not high tier business travelers (like me) it needs to fix its program and point expiration policies. And before the B6 cheerleaders decide to repond by proclaiming their love for the B6 Amex Card: Its not worth $40 bucks a year to me. If I really needed the card to keep the points so I could use some of them over a two year period, it would actually cost $80 bucks, and so that free $320 transcon ticket has lost a quarter of its value. No thanks. That is the point when I will simply pick US or DL, fly one segment, and keep my account (and all of the miles in it) for another 18 months.

At the end of the day, I can say positive things about the "vibe" at B6, but its definitively NOT the reason I have chosen B6. The original poster is correct: B6 pricing is usually "average" for the routes they fly, and I usually end up finding airfare on other carriers that would be equivalent to theirs. So, at the end of the day, I picked B6 each year because the program worked for me. B6 needs to think about things like that more. If anything, B6 should be trying to put me in a position to earn 200 points year, rather than having me hold back to 100.

Yeah, I like my Dunkin Donuts coffee and chocolate chip cookies with TV and legroom....BUT.....none of it will keep me flying with them if I know I can get some free leisure travel elsewhere down the road, but need to worry that my points will disappear in 12 months with B6.