How did you find this out?

About 10 years ago a OP rep told me that my husband had 1.6 million lifetime miles, and I had 1.4 million.

I have asked OnePass several times what our current totals are, and the answer I get is always some variation of, "I have no way of knowing, we don't keep track of that information."

If that is true, it would be impossible for them to initiate mileage threshholds for lifetime elite status.

If CO is concerned that people who achieve lifetime elite status will defect to another airline once they receive it, why couldn't they institute something like "Senior Elite Status"? Anyone who has achieved elite status (or Platinum Elite status) X number of years would be awarded lifetime "Senior Elite" at retirement age, say age 62.

This would give people incentive to stay with CO, and reward that loyalty. It would also give the "Senior Elite" incentive to continue to fly Continental during retirement, when their flying will probably be less.

Why would they want to do that. Seniors would buy cheap advance purchase tickets. The FF programs started to gain loyality from higher fare business travelers.

They would do it because as a retired ff I travel on weekends, buy higher fare buckets to insure upgrade, and buy a lot of tickets (78k miles for 2004, 106k miles for 2005 and plans for 50k for 2006 on CO/Skyteam, with 30k on other airlines in 2004). Yes I book well in advance but CO doesn't release the "T" tickets closer to departure than at the beginning of the 330 day window.

In future years my travel will start to be curtailed but I will be flying business class. Since I get automatic "Status" when flying business I can fly any airline so would giving me lifetime status cause me to stay with CO? Probably, but what are they really going to lose by giving it to me. A few more miles that I can't use without a struggle but access to the elite line (thanks again Cigarman its a great benifit).

KL gives you lifetime status after 10 years at that level. If you spend that long learning the ins and outs and like the schedule and sevice provided you will more than likely stay with them.

So CO why don't you check and see how much your unlimited elite flyers are still using your service? I would hope you would be pleasently supprised. ^

Somebody should start a club for Infinite Elites. Heck, with the internet, I'm surprised there isn't one already. :)

My wife and I are among the folks who were in the right place at the right time to achieve this status. It obviously worked out MUCH better than we expected, since the survival of CO was by no means assured back then. Frankly, I thought my best shot at a "real" lifetime status was if somebody bought CO and grandfathered us into their own lifetime elite program (like for the million milers). Indeed, a takeover by DL was VERY close at one point.

Hopefully, our luck will hold out for the future. No guarantees in this business, but (even with the current industry troubles) it still looks much better than it did in the early 90s.

My only regret was not buying one of those lifetime Eastern Ionosphere memberships. Even back then, you had reciprocal privileges at the P-Club. In the final few months of Eastern's existence, they made some crazy offers for lifetime Ionosphere membership. My memory is hazy, but my wife says they offered us lifetime "his and hers" membership for less than $500. We didn't do it because while I thought while CO was almost certain to honor the joint OnePass benefits (assuming IT survived), I was quite skeptical they'd honor a lifetime Ionosphere membership if Eastern went kaput (I was pretty sure Eastern was toast!). From what I recall, the folks who bought the lifetime memberships while Eastern was owned by Texas Air (Lorenzo) got lifetime P-Club privileges.

Oh well. You can't luck into everything.

President's Club stealth plan
 

<<folks who bought the lifetime memberships while Eastern was owned by Texas Air (Lorenzo) got lifetime P-Club privileges>>

Shortly after Eastern filed bankruptcy we received a letter from CO explaining that they would not give us lifetime President's Club membership because we did not meet the criteria, which were listed. I wrote back to point out that their records were wrong,we _had_ met the criteria. No response. I let it go because there was no club in Miami, and very little CO service.

A decade later I received a promotional mailing from CO which mentioned our "lifetime membership". I requested "replacement" membership cards, and sure enough my wife and I are lifetime members, "Since 91".

dennis

I had nine years at top level, Gold then Platinum. Starting in '93, not '92.

When I inquired about Infinite Elite, I was told the program was over. Reason given in '97 or '98 "once travelers got the status, we found they quite flying us."

Merry Christmas.

They aren't recognizing the trouble the industry is in when comparing it to the previous trouble they went through. They're all complaining that they're not selling seats - and then you have those few that run all the miles and put up with all their cost cutting BS.

That to me says more than words can express. Pretty much all the other majors are teetering on bankruptcy and CO is not near that edge. This is clearly due to the OnePass program. Asking for a little more recognition is not out of line, and you can view the FF's as the people that are saving the airline from the same fate everyone else is going through.

I am constantly kicking myself for not doing the Delta Million Miler program instead of OnePass. I never thought I'd be flying so much but I'd be almost there by now and I still have a lot of years left.

Maybe it's time I start?

Well, that sure was handy, especially with the reciprocal privileges these days. You never know what the future holds. Funny that the best way to get future access to a Delta lounge was by buying a lifetime membership in failing Eastern.

I'm pretty darn happy that I started flying TWA, then AA several years ago when I found out about TWA's lifetime status.

At the end, TW was running a pretty darn good airline. The way that they tracked mileage for million miler status included bonuses for elite level.

When AA bought TW, I brought in about 400k miles for AAdvantage, matched my status to EXP and have quickly went over 1 million miles, on my way to 2.

I currently have lifetime Gold status "for the life of the Gold program" and will get Platinum for life by the end of next year.

If I had put all of those CO years on AA, I'd be at 6 or 7 million miles in AAdvantage, by the way they calculate this status.

Hindsite 20/20.

Has there be any movement on this subject over the past year? Can we bring this up at the DO in January '06?

I put a suggestion for "alumni status" under ideas for the DO put no comments where made.

I would think CO would like to keep the upgrades for the current business flyer but they do need to give some recognition to elite flyers who keep status for a number of years. If they dump us after we slow down then why shouldn't we look at other airlines?

Yes we can. However, remember that CO will say - and rightful so - do you REALLY want us to bring back lifetime elite status? That'll mean less upgrades and awards for you as there will be more competition. Consider the EQM issue - if we really wanted out upgrade %'s to improve we'd lobby for CO to drop the EQM bonus for booking on line and/or have them up the tier level (e.g. Plat goes from 75k to 100k).

But of course if they did this, the outcry would be so loud that even the stones themselves would cry out. Yet, still the fact remains, those who would qualify for elite status would enjoy more benefits, as presumably there would be less competition for a scarce resource.

Should CO do any of this? I have no clue as I don't have access to their internal information regarding elites/spending patterns/cost of mileage/etc. But from my perspective, such a change would be bittersweet. CO get's both my cheap 50% fares (personal) as well as the higher 150% ones (for work or school) so re-qualification would be harder - but the benefits afforded by status would appreciate.

The solution for lifetime elite will be a plan that affords all the "soft" benefits of status (e.g. Elite Access, access to elite reward inventory, elite phone line, 25% mileage bonus) but not the "hard" benefits (e.g. EUA's, SWUs should they ever come about, 50/100/125 mileage bonuses). We win because we have a goal to word towards, CO wins as they make OP more competitive and "current" elites win as there are less (or not as many) people vying for those upgrades.

But just for grins, CO should offer lifetime top-tier elite status for members whom signed up in the college years after they fly 6,000,000 miles. :D

I don't believe that what this poster was told was correct. About one year ago, I was at the CO counter checking in for an international flight. It was very early and the agent had to go to the back counter at SAT to check on something. I saw a sheet on top of the plastic that covers the checkin counters on which passengers were listed that deserved "special" greetings that day and the sheet listed their elite status, flight that day and program to date miles. (In an earlier job, I learned to read upside down with some proficiency.) At that time, I had about 1.7 million, according to their sheet. While the agent to whom this poster spoke may not have had access to this information, based on what I saw that day during checkin, the agents in SAT do know how much certain high mile fliers have flown.

deleted

What sort of job was that, newspaper reporter? :p

Seriously, that is a cool skill. I guess we could all learn to do it by reading our books and magazines upside down. How did you learn?

On the merits, there are definitely travellers who would be motivated by the prospect of a lifetime membership. UA's mid-tier at 1MM is plainly too generous. DL's 1MM, 2MM, and 4MM thresholds for first, mid, and top tier lifetime elite access seem about right, but CO should not give away the top tier for life.

There is little reason not to give elite bonuses to lifetime elite members. While the elite upgrades seems like "too much competition," if they're not still flying anymore, it won't have much effect. But that is something CO would have the numbers to analyze.

As for the "soft" elite benefits, these could be sold as parts of lifetime Presidents Club memberships.