Hi,
I'm interested in hearing from people who have first-hand experience of the differences in service one gets according to how much business you give an airline (ie. Platinum vs. regular travel) ... I'm looking at the increasing differentiation--where companies are focusing more and more on giving service based on what a customer is actually worth.

--Anybody found themselves downgraded one year and noticed a big change in marketing/service/response time when you call?
--Concrete evidence that the lowest-tier (ie. transient travelers) increasingly don't matter or get much attention?
--Evidence of airlines having more data on you--used for good or ill results?

I'm not interested in general horror stories so much as evidence that there's a growing gap between customers--and growing differentiation by companies in how they handle them.

Email response is fine and my deadline is Friday. Thanks. Diane Brady
[email protected]

Hi Diane: Here's what I can tell you as a Premier Executive w/ United Airlines. If I am treated better or preferential in service as a result of my status, I feel VERY badly for those travelers who fly now and again. I am not saying that I get treated badly (although sometimes I in fact do)as general standard, but perhaps I don't feel as though I am treated any better on a general idea of what good customer service is. I once made a comment about my status in relationship to what was being done (or not being done) for me in a difficult sitiuation. The reply to me was "sir, do you realize how many Premier Executives there are?" Not really the answer I was looking for. There are standard benefits that come with the levels of the airlines high mileage fliers; 25k, 50k and 100k+. I have noticed little else in terms of customer service or any "bending of the rules" for myself as a Premier Executive with United.

I have to ad this one excpetion. I was once delivered a note from the Captain of a flight I was on earlier this year. It was hand written note on the back of his card simply saying thank you for my years of loyalty to United. It was appreciated. Kinda gave me the warm fuzzies I have to admit...

During the Midwest Blizzard of early January 1999, I was scheduled to fly out of MLI on a trip involving international connections, but my flight was cancelled due ot the blizzard. I tried working with the United counter agent, but he was not only not helpful, he was (in my opinion) brusque and arrogant. Said the best he could do would be to get me out in three days, and he didn't know anything about working connections.

So I called the Premier Executive customer service number, and a very pleasant (but obviously harried) lady asked whether I could be in CID (about 70 miles away) within 5 hours. I said I could sure try! She booked me a flight out of there, with different connection city routing, that got me to my international flight in time to make the connection.

Was it due to my Premier Executive status, or just to the personalities of the people involved? I don't know. I just know I really appreciated what the CSR did for me, and wasn't impressed at all with the counter agent's attitude. (He may just have been having a bad day.)

LH's miles&more programtop-tier level 'Senator' officially guarantees (on international flights) a seat (even on overbooked flights) on 24 hours notice for business and first-class, and 48 hours in economy. In other words, to please a 'Senator', LH is ready to bump an 'ordinary' low- or non-status-flier ...

Some other airlines offer similar preferential reservation/booking guarantees to their 'top-client�le.