matrixwalker2012

it seems like the more people I talk to, the more I get stares from people when I mention Elite Qualifying Miles. Even talking to some friends who used to work at AA, they ask me what I think about the revenue based mileage and I don’t really care as I’m more interested in the EQMs and those haven’t really changed much for me. Mostly better since I fly a mix of Y/F domestic and fly some partner W/J as well.

Sometimes I call in to ask for ORC and the phone agents keep telling me that ORC is useless because miles are based on spend and when I say it makes a difference in the EQMs, they suddenly become clueless and just say miles are miles.

So how come it seems so few out there are aware of EQMs? To me, that’s the main thing I care about.

And dont even get me started on MM Miles, more cluelessness...

muishkin

Public? Not so much but who cares. What's not okay is the ignorance of the phone agents.

rjw242

Probably because the overwhelming majority of people will live their whole lives without attaining (or coming close to attaining) elite status on any airline, so it's not relevant to them.

Phone agents should certainly know, though.

50ae

I'm going to make EXP this weekend, first time, yea, and even I have never bothered to fully learn about EQM because I've always made my status off of segments. Right now I'm at 120 EQS and 11465 EQD but only 80k EQM of which 10k of that is from Citibank Executive card.

apeortdz

A few years ago I was telling an intelligent friend that I was doing a mileage run. He said "Why bother, you can just BUY the miles." So obviously he didn't understand EQM vs RDM.

Edited to add - No, the friend was not Doug Parker.

rjw242

Here's my confession: I have no idea what elite hotel status is, how it's attained, or what the benefits are. The only reason I know it exists at all is because I've seen it mentioned on FlyerTalk. But since I rarely stay in hotels (and when I do, I always choose purely based on price/location), it's not relevant to me. Ditto with rental car programs.

So I fully understand the mindset of someone who's clueless about EQM.

deeruck

Because most don't care. EQM are only relevant for status, and for most it either happens or it doesn't. They don't chase it. I know that's hard for some on FT to understand

FlyingFrZ

Last year I when I was a Plat I called the platinum desk to ask how many elite miles one of my trips would earn. The rep kept insisting elite miles were earned by amount spent. I pushed back and told her that it was only redeemable miles being awarded for amount spent, and elite status miles were still earned based on flown miles. She wouldn't budge and even when I asked her to go confirm with her supervisor she put me on hold for a few minutes and came back with the same answer :/

At that point I asked to speak with customer service and when I told the customer service rep what had just transpired, he immediately began apologizing profusely for the wrong info the other rep was giving me.

wetrat0

A surprising number of people earn status without knowing it...

Yahtzee

That happened to me when I made US Air silver about 18-20 years ago. Changed my world.

no1cub17

Same here! I really had no idea what elite status was until a few years ago I randomly logged into my AA account and noticed I had 22k EQM - then suddenly I became interested - I'm almost AA Gold? Wow! Used to be I'd log in to my account after the 2-3 trips a year I took home (usually on a mix of NW and AA), just happened to fly AA/BA to India that year. Back then aa.com had a much more antiquated interface but when it lit up in Gold, I noticed :-D

metallo

A colleague of mine attained a new position within the last year or two that suddenly thrust her into the world of frequent flying. She's also a frequent poster on social media, so I've seen the way she travels, and it's clear to me from her posts and my personal interactions with her that she has no idea about elite status, airline lounges, frequent flyer miles, or any of the things she should now really intimately understand, as her career will likely keep her flying frequently for the foreseeable future. As someone who always fully invests and tries to fully understand anything I do, I just can't relate to these people. Truly their loss, though.

50ae

I like to teach the young military guys a little about travel when I'm in the airport. Some of these guys fly extensively and and knowledge you can give them will really help them out. I know I had to learn by trial and error back in the day. I didn't even have a FF# even though I was flying coast to coast once a month in my last couple years in the Navy. It wasn't until I got a traveling engineer job and they gave me my first AA number that I even started to teach myself.

OTD

I saw a young sailor walking through CLT the other day. I asked him how long his layover was. "A couple hours." I pointed him toward the Admirals Club.

My son's a sailor, so I like to help those guys out. OTD Jr. is a Skymiles guy.

matrixwalker2012

I called AA a few times in the last week to ask about a ticket and more often than not, reps keep telling me EQMs are also based off of revenue just like RDMs. :Facepalm:

Why is it that people whose jobs are to service the mileage program cannot be bothered to know the difference between the two and how they’re earned?