Of course, you could go a totally different route and be really innovative: It is obvious that, at least in principle, United intends to offer three distinctly different products with differing pricing schemes. First, Business and Coach. And in such classes of service, various distinctions exist between different classes of passengers. Maybe less so in F, but certainly in C and most certainly in Y. I think it is also universally agreed that United cannot afford to have one or the other cabin entirely empty.

So, while a C-Fare customer in Business is preferable over a D-Fare customer, so is a B-Fare customer in coach over a Q-Fare customer. Now, the problem in profiling this under the current structure is that customers are not always flying in the same paid cabin on the same fare. I therefore propose a composite profile that takes into account the total monies paid per fare class in each cabin. For myself, who has never paid F and only one time in the last year paid C (out of necessity; it's a long story) but who never pays the lowest coach fare (and rarely the highest), my profile would initially look something like this: F0?C1?Y7? What is the second question mark, you ask? That is to factor in the length of the trips, or total mileage as of today. I would factor it in steps of 10,000 and anyone over 100,000 is a top mileage customer (just like today). So, my actual profile would then be: F00C12Y79.

And there you have your immediate ranking, including the preferred weighting by revenue and the secondary weighting by miles. It is so simple, even the computer could spit it out for the GA at the counter. Let me give you an example: In making decisions about, say, giving the last upgrade from Y to F on an A319 that was just changed to an A320, you would compare it like this: We have agreed that the worth of the customer in his or her own cabin rules. So if I was up against an F11C46Y43 I would obviously outrank him since we are both in coach and there I outrank him at Y79. In other words, I am the better coach customer and the preferred treatment accorded to me now is to entice me to come back (to coach). Now, let us say that we both ranked Y79. Then you would compare outside of the cabin going from the highest revenue cabin. In this case, he is the better F-customer at F11 versus my F00. If we were both F00 you would go the C-Class cabin where again, he outranks me. You get the picture. If two people with identical profiles vie for the same thing, you go by who got on the list first (just like today).

Then you could even provide an (anonymized, of course) matrix on the United website that will show you your current place in line for an upgrade and how your current booking will affect it. You could, in a what-if scenario, find out for instance that at your current W-Fare you don't stand a chance but if you paid up to an M-Fare you'd have a decent place in line for a possible upgrade.

Of course, there is room for improvement. For instance, how do you account for a Million Miler such as myself. Well, here again the simplicity of the above scheme makes it so appealing: Add a 1 to the cabins in which the Million Miles have been earned and a 0 to all others. In my case it would look like this: F000C120Y791

Another factor is, of course, whether you would want to keep a running total of miles and revenue beyond one year. I am not sure that it makes sense in all cases but just to accommodate it in this scheme, here's how you would do that: Just go from number designators to letters and you have 26 instead of ten buckets to differentiate your customer base. So, my profile (with running totals) would look approximately like this: FAA0CBD0YGJ1

I think this scheme is fair and equitable in that it incorporates revenue, mileage and loyalty. And the beauty of it is its simplicity and that it is absolutely transparent to both United and its customers.

Please feel free to offer any comments or suggestions for improvement.