Dave Noble

I would not agree there. For those travelling in business and 1st class, earning status can be much easier. As far as whether the benefits are better , that is opinion. I would say that benefits such as offered by BA to provide lounge access on all itineraries for those with status is better than what AA offers , plus the lounges are a lot better making the benefit even more useful

Fly 1st class return LHR-SIN-SYD and earn 900 TPs on BA . 600 TPs are needed for Silver (c.f. AA Platinum ) and 1500 TPs are needed for Gold ( c.f. AA Executive Platinum )

Do the same journey crediting to AA , distance of 10672 x 2 = 21344 . EQMs earned = 21344 and EQPs earned = 32016

For this travel type , BA seems to win hands down on being easier.

For a discount economy journey, AA would stille earn 21344 EQMs but on BA would only earn 150 TPs - here AA is 85% of way to Gold status vs 50% on BA

BA's scheme is targetted to status to those who pay the high fares for ease of status

Alex_I

I do fully agree that the shift in revenue is only thing that does matter. And this is not only the number of seats sold in F. If the demand for J and F is increasing, AA and others will be installing the extra rows in front of the plane. That is obviously is not happening.
I would even say if AA could keep their average price a passenger pays per mile flown higher than UA and/DL, then Parker would see no reasons to change the current AAdvantage.

Col Ronson

gee thought i mentioned this like a month ago but nobody believed me lol

"not even on the plate now" from the horses mouth.

They are more worried about the merger than anything else. It took UA 4 years after merging to torpedo their program. AA isn't going to do it after year 1.

Superguy

True, there have been promotions that have offered more miles for flying certain routes. The blanket "get 2x or 3x on all flights" have generally been fewer and farther between. Even if there's a bonus for getting a CC, most people aren't going to churn cards, and carry multiple cards to get miles on multiple airlines. It's not worth it to those that fly once or twice a year.

Even if someone uses their DL Amex, that Kettle's only going to get 7 miles per dollar instead of 5. If they buy that $300 net transcon, they're only going to get 2100 miles instead of the 5k they would today. They'd have to pay in the neighborhood of $750 net to approach what they would get now, and they're not going to do that outside of a family emergency.

Except that it's going to take them twice as long as it did before. And of course, how much availability is there at the low level vs higher tiers? It's much easier to find a 50k Y award than a 25k.

I don't think the sky will fall - it's just that the programs will become irrelevant. The problem with an all revenue system is you're changing the metric from miles to dollars, and neither is an accurate measure of loyalty. Just as a mileage runner can skew the results to a lot of miles for a little money, the infrequent but bigger spender isn't particularly loyal either. Just because I drop $10k on a ticket doesn't make me loyal. I bought a C ticket on UA last year for $7k. While by dollar amount I was certainly "more loyal" or "more valuable" than many of UA's gold and silvers, I certainly wasn't loyal to the airline. And they certainly weren't going to get my butt back on their planes very easily. They just happened to have an itinerary that worked for me.

Calculating by miles tends to reward the longer term BIS flyer, while the dollar figure rewards the "what have you done for me lately" figure.

I think the real solution lies somewhere in the middle - rewarding based on miles flown but with added bonuses for spending more. That would also take care of the short hop but expensive segment flyer as well.

If they want to reward the latter, fine. Just don't pretend that they're loyalty programs any longer.

Superguy

I think the problem we're looking at is this doesn't have to be an either or promotion: either reward the "lower" spenders or rewarding the HVFs. I think both groups can be adequately rewarded without killing off the existing program.

Here's along the lines I'm thinking of:

Give bonuses for spending above a certain threshold:

EQDs aren 't required. However, peg targeted spend to about 10 cpm. If you exceed 50% of the targeted spend for a tier (i.e., $3750 for gold, $7500 for plat), you get get additional mileage until you hit the next tier. So say you get an additional 25% bonus on all miles as a gold if you spend $3750, so your bonus is 50% instead of 25%. If you've already exceeded the threshold of the next tier by spending more, your bonus carries over.

Spend 15k, you get a 200% bonus. Then raise it in increments for every 5-10k spent.

At the lower tiers, any bonus for spending could be a lump sum as well, such as spend $3750, get a bonus 10k miles.

I'd have to think about it more, of course, as this is a quick and dirty thought. UA and DL are pushing a lot of mid tier travel thru the donut hole, and mostly going rewarding just the HVF and giving the Kettles cheap fares. The donut hole folks get little to reward their loyalty. This throws some bones to those middle tier as well while still rewarding the HVF.

TrojanHorse

So are you saying your husbands company pays some ITA monkey 50-100K a year to review all airfare transactions over $X is reviewed. Unless that guy is finding a lot of savings then this guy is a cost center and an overall detriment to the company

another way to beat this system is to wait until closer in to travel time to book your ticket where the prices among all the airlines become closer

if one month our AA is $500 and UA is 650 but you want UA.. wait until say 1 week out and while the fares may now be $800 bucks they both may be the same and that traveler can pick whatever airline he wants. ITA Monkey approves the travel and saves the company nothing yet they still have to pay ITA Monkey's salary

relangford

In the government, we HAVE to use the GSA contracted city pairs (well, almost always). The system is automatic and the only way to file your settlement voucher is if the Defense Travel System (DTS) originally booked your flights.

4aks

The FF programs do a few things:

- encourage loyalty when given similar ways of traveling at similar cost
- give a kickback that is most valuable when used towards excess inventory in the future

I often travel with two bags on leisure trips, so the 2nd checked bag free is a major cost avoidance

I assume the cargo area of each plane is never topped out, so checking my bags for free doesn't increase their operational costs, it just means they are forgoing a revenue tack-on opportunity - they'd rather at least have my fares throughout the year

It's probably written somewhere, I haven't seen it yet - I've been crediting my recent US flights to AA - they aren't going to expire my US miles in my Div Miles acct prior to the FF program merge, right?

mikelat

Depends. When was your last US activity? AA activity will not prevent expiration of US miles when the programs are still operating separately.

4aks

Last US Div Miles activity was a year ago

I've have a few US flights this year, credited to AA

Fanjet

DMs still expire after 18 months of no activity. As do AAdvantage miles.

mikelat

Well, based on existing timelines, you'll probably want to generate some DM activity in next 5 months or so to ensure your DM miles don't expire. Don't expect the programs to merge in CY '14.

krlcomm

Gotta give propers when due, you said it here... I read it. Sometimes it's hard to put faith in what people hear... I have posted "stuff" that I heard directly from people that should be in the know that did not exactly pan out but you definitely posted this and it looks to be spot on! +2

alltheteainchina

Rev. programs are the way to go. I would be fine if it were entirely revenue based. Why should someone hold any sort of status that waives fees when their loyalty in $$ does not equate to any benefit for the airline? Hotel programs should be revenue based as well. It encourages folks to spend more, and if we have less EXP/CPs, plats, golds, etc... because of it, so be it. If you want status, pony up the $$ and quit being cheap.

4aks

Thanks for the replies everyone

I looked it up, my last activity was a miles transfer in, activity date 10/15/13, post date 11/1/2013 -- so, if they merge 3/1/2015, I think that timing will work well for me

13k div miles ... wonder if they'll merge them 1:1 with AA miles?