Originally Posted by
jerseyfinn
. . . I would have thought they'd add in the fake statuses (and partner status) to create better numbers. This seems to be an odd statistic that shows no real trend . . .
Strange, I come to exactly the opposite conclusion DCUSCPUAPE.
The fact that they break out the "Everything Counts" people who gain status courtesy of FTD imparts a definite meaning to the numbers. Granted, the numbers reflect "pacing" ( anticipated qualification benchmarks). More important is that the numbers speak only to pax who are BIS. They provide a murky view of what's going on with elites.
US is indeed obscuring information about how many elites it has shed over the past 2 years ( OTOH name an airline that has full disclosure about its FF program ).
Here's the logic.
Pulling out the partner airlines miles makes some sense, because each airline as separate airlines (American West and US Airways) each had a a smaller route structure. It is especially difficult to make 100K BIS on either airline without utilizing partners. However, after the merger, with the larger route structure, it was much more possible to make status with BIS miles all on a combined USAirways. Hence the huge pop, especially in CPs for 2005/2006.
The second part doesn't makes sense. I think everyone would agree that last year's "everything counts" promotion was more generous than prior year's EQM promotions. So if you have someone who flew 90,000 BIS miles realizes they can spend $500 on flowers and stay home the month of December and still make CP, it's tempting. In prior years, they'd go the extra mile (so to speak) and would actually have to fly the 100K miles.