ContinentalFan

You missed the point! If someone hits elite status on CO in July, chances are they're not going to have enough time to hit top tier on another carrier. None of the airlines matches CO affiliation to the respective top tier. None of the domestic SkyTeam members matches CO status to any level. Platinum on AA, for example, isn't close to what CO offers its Platinum--the top level on AA is Executive Platinum and that has to be earned. Top tier on AA, UA or US involves flying at least 100,000 miles. Hitting top tier on CO and another carrier won't work in the scenario described. If someone flies under 150k a year, they're only going to hit top tier on CO.

suitcasejockey

I don't think enough emphasis has been put on the barriers to jumping programs.

Sure, the other airline will match you, but that's only up to the mid levels of their program, and not towards their lifetime elite.

Can someone at the DO please really dig into this issue? Make everyone there read this thread and all the points? This really is a pretty important issue and the longer this thread gets the more thinking I am doing about options. If the word comes back hard nose negative again, I suspect Jan 1 some people may start faxing in their statements to get some status matches.

But the most important issue of jumping programs - the jumping back. Once you piss off a plat to the point of them dumping loyalty and going somewhere else, YOU WILL LOSE. There is no way to win a war with a plat. You will be easily able to win a battle but there's a 50% chance it'll get reversed on appeal up, and there's a much higher chance (for me 100%) that I will remember this actively and depending on the severity cut ALL spending. Our company has instituted a no Virgin Atlantic policy. If a plat has to change programs, and sets off down the road towards someone else's goal, YOU LOSE.

Imagine FF's as potential dates in a bar. The plat isn't some naive one airline only person, he/she's been around the block, so to speak (airslut?). He/she has probably had significant experience with several carriers and settled on one for some reason or another. Now if you allow "your" date to look around and see all the pretty perks on the other carriers, you let your plats compare your offering to what all the other carriers are peacocking, you're putting yourself in a risky position. Especially if this person is your "sure thing" - the person you're counting on being loyal to you. The person that you took home last weekend, the weekend before, etc. And now they're looking at a major shortcoming of yours and see that trait in every other potential (your competition). What if that person goes home with someone else? What if that carrier manages to sell them on it? What if your reliable actually likes the service? What if your customer realizes that it's not so bad flying through Vegas on the way to LA instead of Houston? What if they find a restaurant in Vegas they like, or they enjoy a two hour slot machine binge? Once that cat is out of the bag, it's hard to get back in.

If a plat makes a commitment to walk down the million miler path with a carrier, it's hard to shake them. It's only a minor commitment. CO stands to lose much business the more popular this issue gets.

Gotta say, for me, CO's already on thin ice. I am what I believe to be under 50% upgrades for 2007, the victim of price abuse, completely fed up with the incredibly bad IFE, and still curious why I take CO on any internationals at all when every other carrier upgrades their plats.

Another issue is the miles program as a pension. CO offers their employees pensions and all kinds of benefits. But the pensions stay, long after the relationship between the employee and co is over. Where's ours? I'm tired of paying for someone ELSE's pension - I want some long term stability. I want to know CO will remember me on March 1.

I am still astounded that co still thinks they have too many platinums. With that attitude, the problem will self-correct. Plus rumor has it that CO ordered new large planes. The planes aren't going to be 90% full forever.

If most of the other carriers didn't suck, this decision would be easy. Now there's a quote.

Colin

CO could make liftetime elite status active only upon earning X number of miles AND being 60 years old. Will solve the problem of younger professionals defecting after reaching the lifetime threshold.

ContinentalFan

I think there's a quite a few reasons why the age condition wouldn't work! In any event, if they set the bar at 4 million EQM's, it would take most people a long time to reach it.

jiburi

Continental's marketing department is fully aware of each airline and their marketing strategies. Each airlines will make selective attempt to make a niche to make its program more appealing and Continental has chosen not to use lifetime benefits as one of the current benefit.

For example, Continental is the only major carrier to offer meal at meal times, even in coach. Many carriers have opted to remove free food altogether, while others have purchase meals. Continental continues to offer blanket and pillows. Entertainment is also available on most flights complimentary..., unlimited upgrades....etc These noticeable benefits are what Continental has chosen to market it's product. A benefit, which only a select few can actually realize, is probably not cost effective, and bad business decision.

Jiburi

vsevolod4

Elite for life certainly alters behavior.

First of all, there are not all that many elites for life on any carrier, so complaining about how this might negatively affect future upgrade availability is a red herring.

The positive impact is that it would set an aspiration for a legion of flyers to fly more on CO. Under the current structure, once you get to 75K miles on CO, there is no further incentive to fly CO, so the "whales" like ContinentalFan are encouraged to attain Platinum status on other carriers. Having 1M/2M/4M targets such as with AA would encourage them to "pile on."

I can say from personal experience that after being Platinum for 8 years on KL, later AF/KL, that the "Platinum for Life" program kept me clocking 100K miles a year even though I no longer had a locus in AMS. And once attaining Platinum for Life, I continue to fly AF/KL more than I would have. In short, it motivated me to fly more in order to attain the lifetime status, and once I achieved it, it motivates me to continue to fly.

Another example of the effect of programs with "stretch targets" was UA's "Elite Choices" program which had a 300K EQM target. Where I would have probably put about 150K of my 640K EQMs on UA last year, I ended up shifting discretionary flights to UA in order to hit the target.

The lack of a million miles or other similar form of recognition is a competitive disadvantage for CO; one that would cost very little to implement, and with a revenue upside both long-term and short-term that far exceeds any nominal costs.

duchy

This is a really interesting thread...... until I read it I had no idea CO didn't have a lifetime reward for loyalty or soft landing. CO is my 2nd tier card for the times I don't fly One World.
As an "outsider" looking in and only viewing lifetime reward as something for the future I find myself wondering if the miles I am currently putting on CO are a waste and if I should be switching my 2nd string card to a carrier who is less preoccupied with the present for one that is also taking a longer view.
If as a releatively infrequent CO FFer I'm thinking this way it isn't hard to imagine others who fly a lot more than me feeling the same.
I value softlanding-life happens. 2008 barring anything extrordinary happening I'll be AA Plat and knowing that if things change next year AA value me enough to keep me at Gold-for me that has value with seat assignments and check in. CO however will simply blow me off and treat me like Joe Bloggs who's never given them any business. For me there is no incentive to lodge miles with CO when there are other carriers who will bank my miles towards a future lifetime reward -as who knows what the future will bring-my travel patterns may change and that second tier carrier may become my primary carrier.
If things go as planned for me with a new business then my TATL travel will increase dramatically next year -if so I'll be thinking hard if there is any value for me with CO who only "care" if I am constant to them and don't have any peaks and troughs in what averages out as substantial travel.

cova

I sort of view the current Delta program as having grandfathered in the current DL Elite members. Before, the 1/2/4M thresholds were based on total miles - including the 100% travel bonus and credit cards, etc. These levels were obtainable under these conditions. Rather than eliminate the program and tick off a lot of people who were close to the ranges - what DL did was simply change the earning rules - to EQM only. But for those a good way along - these levels are obtainable.

To start a new 1/2/4M EQM program and with 150/100/50% EQM - and not include the co.com 50% bonus on cheap tickets - such a program would be mostly unobtainable - as discussed - certainly for the top tier.

CO could privately offer benefits - say if you were a COStar for many years - had so many EQM - and so much revenue over a lifetime - at age 62 give lifetime - in sync with the 62 and over Senior lifetime PClub membership.

Another thing to consider:

Start to buy FC tickets or coach if you are Plat Elite and travel only when you need to or want to. Avoid unnecessary trips which you may have done for mileage run - or just to earn mileage. Put the money you would have spent on these extra trips into a stock index account. If you are young - you have many years to accumulate money in this fund. Then when you are old or slow down on flying - simply buy First Class tickets and fund the difference between FC and Coach from this fund.

One of the reason FC sells out is it is now afforably priced - sometimes just 2x that of coach. In the end - the name of the game is flying FC, getting elite privileges, and getting some free trips. You get the first two by buying a FC ticket and use the fund for so called free trips.

Even status does not guarantee an upgrade. Recently I had a four segment RT - in "V" class - a mid tier fare around $500. But I got no upgrades on any of the four segments. Although I could preboard with Elite Access, my luggage was checked - so preboard wasn't needed.

ContinentalFan

My suggestion is that if elite-for-life is important, forget about Continental. Now that I have flown AA extensively and started to fly DL pretty regularly, CO isn't that dramatically different than the other carriers--well certainly now AA and DL. If anything DL reminds me of the 1995 Continental, so I feel drawn to that carrier. CO is a good carrier, but others reward loyalty, which resonates with me.

ContinentalFan

On certain routes, say LAX/EWR, an H fare doesn't help much either! Good point that FC is priced competitively; YUP is the way to go on routes like LAX/EWR.

Weatherboy

There's going to be a time when thanks to the "bankruptcy resets" other carriers are entering that CO won't have the best product or the newest plane in the skies. Look at DL --with new plane orders, new international F seats, enhanced in-flight services (like tv's and MP3 libraries at every seat), they're coming out of bankruptcy just as CO did over a decade ago with a fresh outlook on things.

CO should implement long-term strategies now to sustain loyalty over the longhaul so that as other carriers improve their offering and/or new LLC's pop-up, passengers have a vested interest to stay with CO even if CO's product doesn't keep pace with other carriers' innovations.

jerseygirl

Elite for life would give me a great benefit that I think would also benefit Continental. Doing less work related travel now so might lose my elite status. Have already gone down from a 5 year platinum to silver then back up to gold. if I was given gold or even silver lifetime i would certainly fly on continental more. If NO status then less reason to stay with Continental and more likely to go with other airlines.

suitcasejockey

Another thing to mention:

People are assuming "there's no more incentive to fly after 75k". That's clearly not true in my case. I truly believe CO is the best carrier. Well right now anyway After seeing the Houston war room, I was so impressed that I even started pushing my friends to CO. Right now most of my Amsterdam friends take CO to America. They take it because I made them try it and they thought it was the best also.

If you're lifetime platinum, YOU ARE THE KING. Why wouldn't the king take his own airline? You get 2.25x your miles flown. You get priority boarding. You get the extra baggage and all the benefits. Why would you skip all that to start fresh with someone else? My loyalty is going with the guy that's taking care of me. You make me happy, I stay. No reason to go if you're happy.

Sure there are a few other good carriers, I don't just take CO. There are destinations and routes that CO just doesn't serve (hopefully "yet"). If CO offered the routes I needed 100% of the time I would probably sit on CO 100% of the time.

Lifetime elite to me is just an insurance policy. They pension their staff at my expense, how about pensioning me at no expense? WE right now - WE are the ones that got CO through the past six insane years. I made plat for the first time (gold and silver before) in 2001 and we're still spending. This is the exact era that we SHOULD be getting rewarded for keeping them in business.

Also the 60 year old cutoff - that's not a good idea at all. If you earn something why not get it? THAT is what is going to encourage people to fly other carriers... You just locked up CO plat for life - but you don't get that benefit for another 20 years. You miss a year, hard landing, no status. Why on earth would you start over with CO when you know you have your platinum back in 20 years? THAT is when the guy's going to start experimenting and he might find someone he likes better. Or he could probably easily status match on jan 1 with the prior year's with someone else.

I said this before and I'll say it again. If I went from Plat to nothing, I'd probably never fly them again. I'd be sitting in coach crammed in the back steaming about how I should have started out on Delta - I'd be in first there.

Actually just thinking about that scenario is making me think about booking Delta for a flight wed instead of co. I don't think I'll be making any midseason changes but it just doesn't make good sense for me because I *KNOW* Continental *IS* going to tell me "Sorry, you USED to be platinum for all those years."

100% chance unless something changes that I will be dropped to complete stranger status. I can envision in a few years the discussion, "I'm sorry, have we met?" "Yeah, I ran 3 million miles on you over the past 15 years, bought president's club memberships, gift accounts, travel club, put all my coworkers and friends on your airline, and kept you out of bankruptcy in the early 2000's." "Nope, no idea. You want 24 B or 26 E?"

Think about it. Don't you think that's going to happen to you?

bigboofer

I also don't understand CO lack of lifetime benefits. I fly my 75K to 100K each year with most on international flights (which means no EUA's) but CO goes where I want and provides reasonable service. Why they think I would fly on them less after learning the ropes at CO just to get some wallet candy elsewhere I can't understand.

In another year or so my travel will change from the South Pacific to all over the world and I will have the ability to fly any airline. I can get all the elite benefits by buying a J ticket and just enjoy the flight at a time I want to travel. So why buy a CO ticket if all my past flights mean nothing to them?

That's why you have life time benefits. You don't keep finding new customers and not give a dam about your old ones.

docr775

I used to be a CO nut and avoid flying other airline unless CO did not provide an option. I have been elite for the last 10 years and PLAT for the last 7. Two and a half years ago I started to fly AA because of a contract I was working on. I discovered the AAdvantage program and its life time benefits. I have been EXP with them for the last two years and due to the creative used of bonuses, Citibank cards, etc, I made life time gold this year. That will entice me to fly more AA, even when I do not have to fly as much as I do now. Why? Exit row seating, priority boarding, priority stand by are the first three that come to mind. As a result AA will have my business for the next 30-40 years. Once I drop to no-status, why should I keep on flying CO? Hockey pucks at meal time and a thin blanket? AA has brought back blankets on their main line jets.