<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TomBascom:
People who fly exclusively on the cheapest fares and who do so enough to qualify for elite status are also being told to get lost -- imagine that $15,000/year and your money is no good?
This helps the airline how?</font>
If $15000 were to spend on 75 $200 C-C RT, then USAir might have said "Screw them, we can't profit from these people anyway." Since with the 75 RT, you will earn 750000 (2x bonus, 2x 2500 distance) miles along with your flights. 750000 means a lot of free seats promised in the future, and potentially lost revenue.
One thing that most people on FlyerTalk overlooked is what is coming next? I have to say reduced capacity. Who knows how small USAir need to be in order to survive. When the supply meet demand, that'll be the time tix price will rise.