I feel your pain. I even recognize some of the EMB-145 tail numbers from previous flights.

Note to Dearest Swami: Have been embracing non-elitism for years (don't even have the PP card, although I do have an Amex plat).

I have been loving it.

I feel we should start a support group for recovering frequent flier elites...we could call it Elites Anonymous...

Plat to splat for me this year. February 28 I was customer number one, head of the line, top dog. March 1 I was back on loser status. Sitting on the floor out in the terminal waiting for my international flight. Very hard landing.

I am going from plat to gold. I will end up with 53k eqms. I did not see the value in doing MRs to make up the difference. Gold will be fine for me

I am probably going to end up with about 40k EQMs too, finishing as Silver for the first time in years. Not happy about it, but it's one of those situations where I think it's bad for me but good for the system. The 2010 ranks are clogged with too many inflato-elites and they have to be culled for the merged airline if Gold, Plat and 100k+ status is going to mean anything at all.

As the merged route network normalizes I think we can expect some trip reductions which such F inventory out of the CO/UA universe. If the elite ranks aren't somewhat distilled also, the problems we saw in 2010 ("most elites sitting in back") will only intensify.

I agree. ^ Probably going to kick 2011 off with a few cheap winter MRs while I'm sitll Gold, though... to get a head start on my climb-back campaign. ;)

Buy Ups
 

I think that there will be an avalance of buyups near the end

of the year with all the superselling of 11 cent EQMs

Gets expensive...
 

It's a fairly steep price to pay to advance to another level unless you're fairly close. The question is - if one can't make the next level with flown miles this year, does the expected level of flying next year will one get a decent return on the added cost?

Um... what is the question again?

I might add that one reason I'm short CO EQMs is that almost all my leisure flying this year was on DL awards as I cleaned out and shut down my SkyMiles account. Would've made Gold easy if I'd paid for those trips and flown *A, and would probably be close enough to 75k to justify a year-end MR. Oh well.

There is help for you, oh my brother. Your true head start starts in your head. You can free yourself from the chains of elitism. Defeat the evil that is EQM! Peace awaits!

Great minds think alike. I made a mental note to post such a self-help thread in February. Given the DEQM binge last year, there will be a glut of status-losers in March 2011. Aside from learning to live free from the bonds of Elitism, there are last-minute "opportunities" a falling elite can take before splatting, as it were. I asked for such help myself, and I was soundly dismissed. That ignominy should happen to no one—least of all one who has always fought so hard for the little guy.

Elites shun their fallen brethren instead of embracing them. It remains to us, Brother TWA, to lead the way for the Fallen.

Brother RNE, saying, "Amen."

As someone who benefitted from DEQM last year but will earn it the hard way this year, I am ready for some thinning of the elite ranks.

Agreed that it's worthwhile to purchase EQMs when one is close to the next status level.

I think it depends on whether you are talking Silver to Gold (good to get *Gold status), or Gold to Plat. While one can't count on EUAs, - there is some value to those, when you actually get them!;) OTOH, if one does not expect to be flying much next year, then the possibility of EUAs goes down anyway, so it might be better to buy a higher fare class to ensure BF/F, than to 'invest' in EQMs to attain a status level that may not result in potential EUAs.:eek: