Flyertalker001342

I'm not an AA frequent flyer, however do have a complicated itinerary to Europe coming up, which will be primarily on AA metal, earning BA Avios and Tier Points. With the interconnection of the OW frequent flyer/loyalty programs, it's challenging to decide where to accumulate your points/avios/miles/whatever.

I'd propose looking at this as there being 2 competing "sausage factories," one belonging to you, the customer, and the other belonging to your airline loyalty program of choice. The first decision would be what do you want most, Status or Miles/points? Status could be worth a lot or it could be worth next to nothing, depending on where you fly, the facilities available along the route, the likelihood of upgrades, easier access to award tickets, etc. Similarly, miles/points/avios could be useful if you can get seats where you want to go, in your cabin of choice, when you want to go. Alternatively, they could be worth little, if availability sucks for what you seek.

Examples in my own case would be that I often fly a route with Alaska that takes ~2 hours and there are no lounges at either end. First Class seats bought in advance are relatively cheap; how much effort or concern do you want to put into it when you can simply pay $60 extra to get that first class seat vs. worrying about getting an upgrade? I'll just spend the $60, so the potential for upgrades isn't worth much to me, ditto the absence of any lounges makes high status with this airline worth little to me. When I do fly to Seattle or other places having AS lounges, I tend to go in first (flights are cheap in 1st), so I have the only perk of value to me anyway, lounge access, for having bought the first class ticket.

Alternatively, I take vacations with BA to Europe often, and the benefits of status there are worth a lot to me; lounge access, phone numbers that get answered quickly, and overall much better treatment.

So in my own personal situation there is more reason to gain status with BA than there is to gain status with AS, and no reason whatsoever for me to gain status with AA. But that's just me and my own set of variables.

The benefits in the OW alliance are largely but not totally reciprocal, so you do get some transfer of benefits across the alliance if you attain status with one of the carriers. If you do choose to accumulate your miles/points/etc. with one carrier but use them with another, you may lose some portion of the multiplier effect on miles flown as the programs differ a lot on that one aspect. On the other hand, if you can't easily use your miles anyway due to the types of flights you would want not being available, then that's not a huge loss.

LovePrunes

Loyalty just sounds like a nicer way call the program what is 100% essentially a profitability scheme.

Doesn't matter how the OP defines Loyalty unless he starts his or her own company and does a similar program for customers.

Funniest part of this thread, though, is the usual outcry of grievances by one individual poster here who was shown the door by AA, and who wants all the rest of us to hate them as much as he does. Doesn't even like new topics being started. For someone claiming he's over AA and "loyalty", this topic seems to live rent free inside his head.

Edwardvan

I see your point and I agree. Really I am loyal because I have l lifetime gold. But if I had achieved Lifetime platinum -- I would be even more loyal

tomj888

Loyalty is a two way street. We control the process as to which airlines we fly. Many of us make our choices based on convenience, location and schedule. For me, I choose AA if it is my best choice. Domestically, I am treated quite well by AA. Being an Ex Pl has value to me and because I value it, I choose to be loyal to AA. At the end of the day a transcon flight is no more than 4-5 hours west to east and 5-6 hours the other direction. With my status, I am always in a bulk head or exit row. For me, that has value. I also have lifetime Platinum status on UA. And when schedule makes sense to me, I use UA (think Colorado for ski season).
On a one to one basis, for the money I spend on AA they have no loyalty to me in my opinion.. With this move, AA has just joined UA and Delta. I"m not surprised, and I know what I need to do in order to maintain my Ex PL status. In truth, nothing really changed for me. I'll continue to use my Citi cards, my Barclay card and earn points vs miles.Semantics at the end of the day. In the end for me, its continue to be nice to the ground staff. They are the key to upgrades and being treated well.

bl-ord

What an absurd thread.
Those that believe "loyalty" is something to seriously ponder here are likely the same people that think they have Facebook "friends"
Also interesting that so many people here say they will be loyal so long as they get something of value, usually seemingly of monetary value, in return. What a great morality equivalence.

Flyertalker001342

If you are talking about loyalty in the altruistic sense, then most reasonable people would have to agree.

If you are talking about loyalty in the sense of a "Loyalty Program," then the interpretation would be different. A loyalty program is not developed by a business with the intention of inspiring altruism among its participants, rather its intent is to get customers to alter their behavior to favor the loyalty program's sponsor. As part-owner of a business that has had several loyalty programs over the years, I can say with experience that few of these programs work well, including those that we have developed for our own business. The reason is that they are hard to design so as to be effective. The airline company sponsored loyalty programs have been relative bright spots in the landscape of these sorts of schemes.

It is incumbent upon the loyalty program sponsor to provide something that the customer values if they hope that their customers will increase their consumption of the desired goods. It is similarly required of an efficient consumer that they choose among the array of offerings that which gives them the most for the least expenditure on their part.

Loyalty is a great concept when applied to friends, family, and others that we care about. As applied to a commodity business like an airline, of which you are a customer, loyalty and altruism are absurd concepts because its a business relationship.

LovePrunes

how odd...are you not friends on facebook with any of your friends? or are all your facebook friends people you've never met?

milypan

Technically, I would define loyalty to a business as continuing to patronize that business even when it is not in your own self interest to do so. On the transportation side, that means flying AA even when another airline offers you a superior product (i.e. you would prefer to take a different airline based on the total combination of price, times, service, frequent flyer benefits, etc.). On the credit card side that means putting spend on an AA-branded card even when you prefer to put it on an alternative card that earns benefits you value more.

To be clear, I do not consider myself “loyal” to any airline. I concentrate my flying and CC spend on one airline/alliance only as long as I perceive it is in my interest to do so. Likewise, I expect the airlines to only offer customers like me elite benefits and specific earnings structures as long as they perceive it is in their own interest to do so.

BlooJoo

Money.

Herb687

I'm not. Because I'm not on Facebook at all.


Please explain. You've made that statement before. What do you mean?

New topics being started would be wonderful. In case you haven't noticed, this thread is hardly a new topic. It's a rehash of the exact same points being made on the larger Loyalty Points thread.

As I said,
Said another way:Acting against your self-interest or failing to optimize your personal utility because of a sense of loyalty to an airline (or hotel chain) is ridiculous.

FlyingLaw

I would think an airline would view “loyalty” as flying that airline over other airlines. But call me simple/old fashioned.

carlosdca

Does it really matter how "AA flyers" define loyal.
And AAdvantage is a loyalty program (business term), which is not the same as the word "loyal" and any philosophical discussions of what the word loyal means are really unrelated to AA.

I'm lazy to go get a college book quote but this is from Wikipedia:

I agree with Wikipedia. A loyalty program is nothing more than a marketing strategy.
AAdvantage was never created to reward customers (despite what AA literature may say), AAdvantage was created by AA's marketing department.
As such, it is constantly evolving and getting adjustments with the sole objective of making you spend more money on AA. That's it.

jcf27

Spot on! I still can't figure out why people go out of their way to obtain some 'elite status' with a product and service that they constantly complain about with no end in sight.

DataPlumber

Ironically, the loudest complainers aren’t paying to sit up front.