Originally Posted by
ContinentalFan
Sounds good. But if the competitors give that perk and customers have a choice, why would they stay with Continental? I have come to realize it makes no sense to me to remain loyal to Continental and re-up for Platinum each year. I am incurring an opportunity cost by not switching my current business to another carrier.
And this is why I raised the point. If no other carrier had a lifetime program for long-time elites or major mile collectors, I could completely understand CO's need to simply maintain year to year loyalty. But the fact that all of the other carriers are offering something suddenly makes CO less desirable to be a long-term elite with.
We're also talking about a reasonably small population here: 4 million miles is a lofty goal that would take even the most creative "$2k/yr platinum" years to achieve. There's probably significant drop-off along the way to 4 million miles (or some other lofty total), so the risk to CO actually having to offer some time of long term benefit is unlikely.