I'm sure this has been discussed before, and I'm sure some people will find it heretical to even suggest ... but surely one way of simplifying all the points systems would be to award points based on how much was paid for the flight. Since these are cutsomer loyalty programs, surely the airlines should be rewarding us for how much we spend with them, or am I being naiive ?

Andrew

Andrew, I can see the logic and in a similar vein, it's often been my belief that 'Frequent Flyer Clubs' should be renamed 'High Spender Clubs' or 'Corporate Flyer Club' and that would make clear to those of us who scrimp and save points just to make Silver, than in fact we aren't really the target market of schemes like BD's Diamond Club or BA's Executive Club, for example. It's all about getting customers to part with huge sums of money. Yesterday I flew LBA/EDI and back on a company negotiated fare of �266 inc. taxes for a C ticket. What?! Would any sane person really pay this for a half hour flight each way? I could have travelled to New York for less than that.
The only people who prop up these clubs are those who fork out massive sums of money for a shiney looking card and some free pretzels before their flight. Corporate travellers of course.
Just think of how impressive it would look 'Welcome to the High Spender Club Lounge' or 'We'd like to extend a special welcome to our High Spenders'.

The more favourable alternative and to get rid of this 0.25 and 0.50 points for different fare types nonsense is to have a genuine Frequent Flyer Club. This would be based entirely on the number of flights flown, regardless of class, and would drag those who've wandered to Ryanair/Easyjet etc. back to bmi. I must admit that if I ever fly somewhere and am paying for it personally, I do shop around and do consider the LCC alternatives to the likes of bmi/ba. Do you think I would do this if I got 1200 points for a single sector with bmi? No way! I'd stick with bmi 'til the cows came home.

Hmm, well, thinking about it, I can see where they're coming from.

If you look at what I've done since joining DC in March, well, I've taken, I guess, 80 flights, most of them bmi. My average spend is about �200 (including the long-hauls). So, what, that's �16k. Take off taxes, and you're looking at less than half that, given most of the flights are LHR-AMS. Add on 20k freebie miles from the credit card, and maybe, what, �10k credit card spend.

From that little lot, I've got about 130k miles. So far, I've spent half of those miles (plus �450) on a F out, J back LHR-SIN-HKG return on SQ. And I could do that again.

How can that be profitable?

(Not that I'm complaining...)

That's the approach that LH has taken with the overhaul of its Miles & More programme. BD is slowly falling into line through its decision to move many of the Y subclasses into low or no earn categories.

Air New Zealand's relaunched Airpoints programme is heading this way. Earning rates are not exactly matched to the purchase price of the ticket but the link between spending hard cash and earning rewards is made more explicit.

Interesting development - sounds sensible.

As for Neil's "more favourable alternative" - it doesn't sound like it would improve the airline's revenue, which is presumably what loyalty schemes are all about !

If you took this policy one step further, then all the scuzzy blues (like me), who take a handful of cheap flights each year, but earn most of their points from their MBNA card should be kicked out, and it would become a "Frequent Business Class & High Spenders Flyers Club", like EI have done ???

Presumably, those MBNA points earn BD money. They are not giving them away to MBNA, are they?

Interestingly one firm of industry analysts issued a report about a year back urging BMI to segment its customer base by creating a different web sites for the cheap fares gang, while the DC site would be more tailored to those looking for business and premium fares.

Personally I tend to disagree, it's an approach that one of the Scandie airlines (SAS or Finnair, I forget which) has taken and it always bugs the hell out of me that the assumption is that leisure travellers don't look for flexible tickets and business travellers don't look for cheap tickets.