Hi.

Last year Delta introduced rollover miles MQM (elite qualify miles) into its FF program.

This was brilliant.

Their analysis showed that many of their flyers would reach a desired tier (say Gold by earning 50,001 miles) by mid-year (say August) and then would stop flying Delta for the remainder of the year altogether so they could qualify at some desired tier in another program.

By rolling over qualifying miles, flyers could gain a 'head start' for the following year. This move came at a price; Gold benefits were reduced (shifted to Platinum). High flying Plats had a new tier available to them (Diamond) with pretty nice benefits.

My question: Does anyone know (or have any reliable advanced info) if Continental is planning to rollout such a feature in their program?

Thanks.

I don't think that the program is nearly as brilliant as you do. I think that their analysis is flawed in a number of ways, borne out by the number of people who stopped flying just short of a tier level to save the rollover miles for next year, among other things. In other words, they didn't necessarily change customer behavior in a manner that induced more flying and they've also created a system that will artificially increase the number of elite members they have, making the delivery of benefits more expensive overall.

I doubt that CO will implement something similar anytime soon. I also doubt that any other airlines will.

Definitely. DL has experienced an 'inflation' in Elite travelers. Rollover is one; the merger with Northwest is another. The Elite-Plus tiers were a mediocre attempt to sooth pre-merger/pre-rollover Medallion members. The whole thing would been more fair if the Diamond cutoff was actually 100K and not 125K.

With that said, I know my booking behavior has definitely been influenced by rollovers. I doubt I am alone. I still think rollovers were brilliant; however they should have been coupled to other improved benefits or at the very least no deterioration of them.

My hope is that other carriers (like CO) would match the rollover, but maybe with a twist so as not to dilute benefits or inflate elite numbers too much.

One possibly way (a compromise) would be to establish new tier levels, say 35/60/85, effective 2012 and introduce rollovers for 2011.

I would be very interested in the data.

Thanks for your input. All the programs have their pluses and minuses a those depend a lot of where you travel and how often. Trying to figure out which program provides the most benefit is a challenge, at least for me. Rollovers for me gave DL the edge; I know some will disagree (and even strongly).

Increasing the qualification levels in conjunction with implementing rollover is a very bad idea. It reduces the value of the rollover program and also is bad for all the folks who don't take advantage of rollover. It would make the program quite uncompetitive in a hurry.

Which is why I think the combined UA/CO will have 4 Tiers...there is a gap at UA between 50k and 100k...who knows...

Exactly, I am holding short of 125k on Delta to roll over miles into next year, otherwise there would have been extra value in going for the 125k level.
I guess it works both ways for Delta, but it's not perfect. For me it's good because I have the ability to smooth over a slow year (like this year) and can maintain my status in 2 alliances. I don't think CO/UA will adopt this program.

I hope CO doesn't try something like this, if it means that the Silver Elite benefits will be devalued and new benefits will be limited to Gold and above, like what's happened with DL.

I've been motivated to do the opposite in part because of those changes, as I just hit Silver requalifiation on DL last week, and have moved most of my travel for the rest of the year over to CO and A* to requalify here as well.

I do think that rollover on it's own is a good thing, but wish FF status was more about BIS miles and less about CC bonuses.

The Rollover MQM's definitely influenced my behavior. Like many of DL's international road warriors, I had already qualified for DM for 2011 before the DM 2010 even launched. This left me free to requalify for PE on Continental for 2011! If DM were a more compelling offering, I wouldn't have done this. But it's not.

I have a question about rollovers that I can't find an answer to, and I have searched. If I have 6000+ miles from last year, can I roll that on to this year? Or do I have to start from 0 to get back to silver medallion?

You should probably ask this in the Delta forum. This thread is discussing if UA/CO will adopt the program.