<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Canarsie:
What would you do to improve the airline for the frequent traveler?
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Here are some plusses and minuses to chew on, with absolutely no statistics or business model to back me up:
1. Increase seat pitch and air circulation.
2. Eliminate FC domestically in favor of roomier economy seats.
3. Calculate multi-leg itineraries as point-to-point, eliminating the motivation to "pad" itineraries to amass miles or segments.
4. Refuse to sell three-leg itineraries until all two-leg itineraries are nearly sold out. This prevents mileage and segment padding.
5. $5 for special meals, but free movie headsets. I hate airline movies, and I hate sticking airline headsets into my ears.
6. Calculate elite levels based on actual miles flown (subject to the above-mentioned limitations) with a premium for top-tier fares.
7. Priority luggage handling and boarding for elite members.
8. Miles expire two years after last activity.
9. Free booze coupons for elite levels only. Hey, the stuff dehydrates ya like a prune.
10. Platinum members get 100% mileage bonus; Gold gets 50%; silver gets 25%.
11. FF award seats non-changeable and non-refundable, unless a 50% mileage premium is paid (waived for elite levels). Reduced mileage requirements to Europe off-season.
12. Upgrade policy: Automatic for PM in advance; 72 hours for Gold; reduced mileage for silver on day of travel. K or better fare except on day of travel, then fill 'em up with standbys. No paper upgrade coupons.
13. In fact, no paper coupons of any kind.
14. Priority waitlisting for elites.
15. Intriguing idea: Mileage charge for FF tix would be PER LEG, so that multi-leg itineraries would cost more than the same destinations flown directly.
Those are afew ideas off the top of my head, without any deep thinking...