FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Time to reprice award travel

May 31, 2008, 4:10 pm

#12

Don

Join Date: Jul 2000

Location: Connecticut

Posts: 893

Quote:

Originally Posted by lofly

DON, for your information: Delta has another method to handle "award tickets" without increasing mileage!

They simply LIMIT THE NUMBER

of SKYSAVERS, and INCREASE THE NUMBER OF SKYCHOICE.

By the reaction of the members of the Delta Board over the past year of so, Delta has DONE this.

And entertaining notion, but wrong.

DL - and others - have been accused of reducing award capacity for years before this latest crisis. And they may very well have done that. But that's simply irrelevant; they're merely giving away less, but still at way-below-value prices. That's an OK strategy - maybe - in a strong economy, but an express ticket to the corporate junkyard in '08.

The time has come for the legacies to devalue the currency of miles.

(Y'all ain't gonna wanna hear it, but: Pax 'loyalty' is no longer the prize that it was. The airlines aren't hurting for customers, they're hurting for profits. And this time around, those two things just aren't interchangeable).

Interesting point about availability: International may well be virtually unavailable, but if I'm an airline exec I've got zero incentive to give away the last profitable bit of my operation to award travel. Just can't afford that any more.

Domestic, though, is another matter. My first & random shots at checking SkySaver this afternoon:

BDL-TPA 12/3-12/8: 25K
BDL-SEA 1/8-1/11: 25K

... now those are the precise dates I entered, not a 3+/- deal.

BDL to SJU - no luck on the 1/11 return, but if I swap to 1/8-1/13 we're talking 32.5K

BDL-EZE .... forget it, no bargains at all.

Anchorage in September? There are a few dates workable for SkySaver ... the 16 and 22 are what I priced out: 25K. Identical flights off Travelocity on those days are $540, pre tax & fees.

With so many legacies teetering on the grave, it's simply insane to be giving away the store for 25K.

The defense for mileage runs has always been: Well, the airlines' own systems allow it, so why not? And that's a fair point. But when the industry is in meltdown mode & slashing capacity at full throttle, it's time to get tough.
(Customers will 'vote with their feet'? Those days are over, and that threat's an empty).
'Loyalty' customers these days are mostly red ink: The full-fare crowd is the only one you can afford to retain. Hell, when you're losing money on the average pax, you want fewer of 'em, not more.