Originally Posted by
bigguyinpasadena
I am sorry-but"every FF seat=lost revenue"is pure nonsense.
The airlines are making huge profits on FF miles by selling them to every possible co-brander out there.It really is a patsy scheme where you are suckered into getting this credit card or that one,get this rental car,stay at this hotel-all of which(and others)are paying for those miles.And then you go to cash in your horde o' miles and are told "sorry"none of those seats are available"but you can use them to fly from Burbank to lovely Fresno-only 25,000 miles-oh wait-you want to do it this weekend?That'll be $75 cash please."
If they were not profitable they would not be so many out there up for grabs.
Other than displaying a level of reading comprehension likely to have you heldover in the 6th Grade, you simply missed the point.
The "FF Seat=Lost Revenue" claim applied ONLY to flights which can be predicted to be close to full and those to popular destinations (the LAX vs. BUR syndrome, in which unless you're connecting ... go to LAX anyway?). The way to hold down the cost of FF redemptions is to market them on flights and to destinations with empty seats (and honestly to enourage folks in cities with small airports to get themselves to hubs).
As for the CC miles and other "vendor gimmicks", the same marketing maxim applies. Why see miles used on flights with high revenue and in struggles for few available seats? Very honestly, if I wanted to go to Vienna, AA could get me there far more cheaply getting me from DFW to any NYC airport, forcing me to cross town on my own, and by "purchasing" a seat from Malev to Budapest, a route and destination with fewer folks clamoring to go. FFers here will quickly tell me how to get from Buda to Vienna.
It's simple....First you sell inventory, all that you can, and by methods which minimize potential loss.