The End is Near
The end is near.
The rich get richer and get all the free tickets. We, the humble lot, gallantly step forward on our tired feet upon the worn carpet of many a plane after hours spent waiting in airport bars sipping cheap wine and wondering when – or if - we will ever get home. We ask in our most feeble voice if perhaps that exit row or an upgrade to a beer in an actual glass might come available. Meanwhile, the others, a privileged lot of wealthy credit card users stroll upon the plane with free first class tickets in hand. They are bound for Bangkok. And Sydney. And exotic points afar. They live in large mansions of tinted glass and groomed gardens and only come to the airport so as to clog the security lines with a slow strip tease of tacky jewelry. All this and they are flying for free. Because they can. Because they rack up 500,000 miles a year in affinity credit card charges. And could care less about paying the excess miles for “anytime” (extortion) awards.
The end is near because the wealthy are ruining for us what was once our one and only reward for the days upon days that we endure the LAX’s and LHR’s and NRT’s. We fly. They buy Prada. We get nothing. They get free seats. And they don’t deserve it. The rich are ruining it because they are ignorantly paying a premium for free tickets. As they can. And the airlines with their greedy promises of a glossy-shiny-world-for-your-loyalty-and-give-nothing-in-return programs are shuffling the cards unfairly and are just as much to blame. The people who actually fly are left with a lousy pair of twos at a stacked table of high rollers and crooked dealers.
Pity us the little folk who when trying to book awards to anywhere at anytime are left to realize that our loyalty, our pain in favoring an alliance, our convoluted routings to gain miles was really all for naught. Because the airlines quickly discovered that they could fill the free seats with affinity card users that are more than happy to pay 240,000 miles for a first class to Tokyo instead of 120,000. And while we try to keep up with actually flying for our miles - in the end we are left chasing our tail. We will always be outspend, outmiled, and outmaneuvered by armchair travelers who rarely fly, often spend, and take every free seat to everywhere you ever might want to go.
Of course, there is Halifax. This is United’s token spot of free ticket availability that seems to always come up in the “we have free seats to here” chart. I have been to Halifax. It is a nice place and all that. But I really want to take my girlfriend to Asia. Or to Europe. To hike grand mountains and eat exotic foods. Must I be forced to go to Halifax because the affinity card users don’t want to go there? Perhaps we should start a campaign to romanticize the virgin wonders of Nova Scotia and the exceptional shopping and dining of Halifax in an attempt to lure the affinity card users in thinking that this is the new “it” spot of the world. The phones would be ringing off the hook at United to get those free seats to Halifax leaving us in turn to maybe - by miracle - find a lowly business class ticket with only seven connections to Bangkok for which to use our miles at the “saver” rates. But I dream. As there is no Four Seasons or Aman resort in Halifax just yet to serve as bait.
I give you below a chart below of the “haves” and have not’s” of the mileage war. In order of the most privileged:
1. Actual Frequent Flyers who fly AND spend a few hundred thousand a year in affinity charges. (They actually deserve the free seats more than anyone but are far too willing to pay the high extortion rates for awards )
2. Any Frequent Flyer who resides in Halifax.
3. The wealthy Affinity Card users that never pay for flights but charge everything and spend like crazy. (They do not deserve free seats and the sad irony is that they can actually afford to buy them.)
4. The road warrior who racks up hundreds of thousands of miles in expensive full fare tickets but must wait three years in order to use them as it takes that long to get to the double the miles extortion rates that the airlines love you to use. (They should be 2nd In importance on this list)
5. The nice folks who fly twice a year and still write checks for their purchases. (They might as well walk to their destination as they are never going to get anything free from the airlines.)
I do not mean to come across as a frequent flying version of Che Guevara. And I really do not wish to eat the rich. I only wish to eat the airlines who, in the drive to build lofty returns for shareholders, forgot that they were airlines. But it is too late to turn back. The damage is done. The only course of action for them now is to offer standard “extortion” rates for miles to lure people like my friend Alan in California who charges close to a $1,000,000.00 annually on his United MasterCard and has never once paid for a ticket.
And don’t you dear friends find it rather funny that the airlines now refer to the high mileage awards as “standard” and the original and more appropriately rated awards as “savers?” Do you remember when there was only one tier? And it was not called “saver?” And do you really believe that they are holding an allocation of free seats for 1K’s or Platinum’s or Diamond’s or whatever bull crap name they want to give us? They are not. How many times have you tried to get a free ticket in business class…eventually gave up and bought a coach ticket…only to board the plane later and see that business class is empty? The “standard” (extortion) rewards are the only rewards. And they are force feeding them to us. And the affinity card users are paying it. This is why the end is near.
But perhaps the greatest aspect of a failed system within our fiercely competitive and capitalist society is that someone will inevitably see the wrong and make it right in effort to gain an edge. Thus, I have high hopes for Virgin America. Members of the program accrue miles based on dollars spent (it’s about time!) and award seats are available anytime on any flight if a seat is available for sale. The downfall is a lack of partners and the question as to whether they will link up programs with Virgin Atlantic for redemption. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope. Virgin America may be the last chance to bring back a level of fairness and sanity to a system gone haywire. To properly recognize those who buy airline tickets. To give us reward for bearing the hell that is now business travel. To give us an ounce of hope that the $5 Pringle chips I bought onboard after paying $800.00 to fly one-way to Minneapolis might amount to something one day. And that I just might get me and my baby two seats to the Maldives without feeling like a street beggar in Central Park East.
In the meantime…does anyone know of a nice hotel in Halifax?