Eh? Most of the big hotel chains still award elite status based on number of nights.

I was referring to points earned being based on revenue for as long as I can remember. Hotel status though costs the hotel basically nothing except perhaps a breakfast (which is generally low cost as well), especially since room upgrades aren't typically confirmed until the day of when it's clear the room would otherwise go unsold.

Agree completely. I actually think most people (well, maybe not on FT) would respond well to a fair, transparent, non-arbitrary system like this. Sure it will piss off some of those who are able to game the system and achieve high EQM with low spend, but those probably aren’t the airline’s most profitable customers anyway.

One RT flight and you make 1K, on Jan 3



https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...055552c40c.png

In that example, I would argue UA makes more on that passenger than someone who flies 25 r/t to get to $24K.

There is a reason WN often wins for best FFP. It is simple to understand and straightforward.

True, but there are like 3 benefits.

Not a knock on WN, at all but their entire model is simple which means their FFP is simple too. If I wasn't traveling 100k miles a year and flew a few times, I'd fly WN in a heartbeat

I think that the new program serves to penalize fliers living at hubs to the tune of $6000 at a 1K level. Convenience is the primary reason I choose United but apparently it is time to start reevaluating. If you can fly direct, why add additional stops? If you are going to add a connection, why not look at other airlines? A 60% increase in spend (w/o PQF) is enough to start looking around for me.

Changes for 2019 Appear to have announced on Nov 5, 2018
 

So the big question for me as I start to think about what to do about 2021 status, is when American will make it's declaration of status requirements for EXP.

Based upon old posts I'm seeing on Boardingarea, it appears articles were first written on Nov 5, 2018 for 2020 status earned through 2019.

With that in mind, I guess we'll know in about 3 weeks what AA intends to do.

Absolutely agree. I am done.

Trying to find out the requirements for maintaining lifetime gold, (million miler) if the 4 flights per year still applies.

AFAIK MM status remains unchanged for now until it gets enhanced away. Never heard about 4 flights a year to maintain MM status on any carrier.

There's no change for MM status, if you have MM status that's not effected by this change.

QF have a four flight min to maintain lifetime gold as well.

It's a good point, the CX programme works out as segments by cost, and look what happened when MPC introduced those changes, the previously (and like me stupidly) loyal flyers over-paying in PEY and Y walked. Regular flyers at the back end may not bring the margins, but they do provide less-cyclical revenue flow. Losing this may seem minor when creating their models but once this cash disappears it does make a significant dent as CX has discovered.

I agree with the principle that there ought to be reasonable levels of earnings to get the tiered rewards of memberships, but I think the airlines are in danger of taking in to an extreme by reducing membership numbers at the top levels to the very exclusive.

This only encourages people to go 'free agent' meaning the airlines will be back to competing on cost creating new fare wars. Bad for the airlines, but perhaps good for the consumer.

Neat but UA has never had a segment requirement to maintain MM/Lifetime status; so as long as the account was active you were fine; I went 4 years w/o setting foot on a UA plane and maintain to this day my *G/MM status.