UA Insider

Hi Vulcan, for EasyPass Rewards on Northwest, C class is used for World Business Class and P class is used for all other front cabin (e.g. domestic First Class).

GUWonder

I anticipate it's a march in that direction -- a forced march for CO FFP members who don't attain elite status to either get such status or see a major devaluation even sooner. [Given CO is yet another one of those airlines selling large chunks of miles to desperately raise hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, it's only a matter of time until "the chickens come home to roost".]

sbm12

But what is the "roost??" If CO completely sells out Chase then the cash is paid and the miles are in the "system" but there is no up-side for anyone other than CO. And even that up-side is limited. If no one wants to collect the miles any more then the cards become less valuable and Chase spends longer milking the miles for the cash. So they eventually have to pony up again, but it could be years.

In the mean-time, changes to the slEasyPass availability certainly sucks, but it could be worse. Like next March when I have no status and can't redeem my 280K miles left in the account for anything. I am looking forward to that....

lizinatizzy

Boy, you folks REALLY don't get it. The minute a program starts telling customers--ANY customers--that the "currency" they created is no longer good for buying merchandise, the game is OVER. Pay attention, people, Continental is saying: We're creating a currency that is ONLY good when we say it is. This TOTALLY destroys the validity of the program. How much confidence would you have in the dollar if it were only good SOMETIMES, for SOME merchandise?

And for those of you who claim, well, at least they didn't RAISE EasyPass prices, you're forgetting that they DID raise many EasyPass prices last year right after Delta restricted their "unrestricted" awards. So now we have a situation where EasyPass prices are higher and, for many travelers, they are restricted, too...

I'm elite on CO, but I will not play in any program that actually believes they can tell you there are times you cannot use the currency it created. That is a restrictions too far.

Weatherboy

With the extremely competitive marketplace CO is in, it's a given changes need to be made. I'm just happy that CO continues to protect its most loyal, most valuable customers as much as it can ...unlike most of its competition. ^

I also don't think you'll see CO do too much tinkering with it's Gold/Platinum elites because it doesn't want to send off those valuable passengers off to DL. DL is a fierce competitor that'll become much more fierce when the NW aquisition is complete. If anything, I think CO will play up why it pays to be a top-tiered in their elite program moreso than other elite programs of other carriers.

notabob

Miles are not currency. They're a commodity. Positive or negative impact on your customers and subsequently their goodwill when it comes to future business aside, if you as a company choose not to to trade something of value (last few seats that could be sold for $$) for that commodity, that's your prerogative.

Regardless, these restrictions do not apply to elites, of which you claim to be one.

J.Edward

I disagree, miles are a currency issued by the airline and exchanged for USD, or other consideration. No central bank exists to protect the value of the miles, no regulation limit the ability of what an airline can or can't do with them and devaluation can occur in the blink of an eye.

Now not that any of this is inherently bad but the issue people don't seem to be grasping is if the general public views their miles to be unusable, they'll stop playing the mileage game.

Why is this bad?

Well airlines sell their points to partners (think Chase for CO/UA, Citi for AA, Amex for DL, etc.) and in return they get cash or other consideration for doing so. And just think about this for a second a how good a deal the airlines really have here: they're able to whip up a currency out of thin air without rules or regulation and then trade it for cash. The airline has no obligation to ever make good on their currency (e.g. the airline is not compelled to offer rewards for their points) nor is their any control on the inflationary aspects of it (e.g. the airlines can always raise award thresholds).

The reason they're able to do this is because the general public will currently pay a premium (e.g. higher annual fees/APRs) for products that offer the accumulation of mileage.

If the general public comes to perceive FFPs as being impossible to use (and this has nothing to do with the internal branding of the program - what I mean here is when some calls up and is told there are no mileage seats available at any level) there's the risk they'll no longer pay the premium to the partners to accumulate mileage.

When the partners can no longer charge premium to their customer base for miles they in turn will stop buying the miles from the airline.

When the partners stop buying miles from the airline, the airline will no longer have the ability to generate cash from their "faux currency".

And when this happens the goose that layed the golden egg will have effectively been slaughtered.

I'm not saying that change should not happen, rather I am concerned that when the general membership at large can no longer redeem last minute availability they'll no longer buy into the program. Thus the reason for my previous post: extend last-seat availability to elites and co-branded Chase cardholders. It provides even more reason for a customer to sign up for a Co/Chase product, if they don't already have one, and help shield the customers who are already participating in the lucrative partner relationships.

channa

Very well-written post, and I agree with most of what you're saying. The issue with extending EasyPass to Chase card holders is that it doesn't address the two problems:

PROBLEM 1: Major revenue offset by EasyPass redemptions -- these redemptions offset premium fares at a huge hit to CO.

PROBLEM 2: Massive mileage accrued due to significant credit card use -- these are people who run businesses or have significant credit card spend and use credit cards for everything. We're not talking about households, we're talking about people who earn hundreds of thousands of miles per year. After all, if you're a household with say $2,000/month in spend, that's 24,000 miles per year -- you're not exactly buying 4 x EasyPass to Europe. These are people with millions of miles in the bank, who keep earning.

In fact, you could argue that Chase card holders that don't fly the airline are the problem: someone with a high spend or a business, just racking up the miles, then not caring about blowing them at a higher level.

What I think CO should have done was put a limit on the number of miles one can earn per year with the credit card. Obviously this would come as a revenue hit as well, as there would be fewer card holders. But, it would keep the integrity of the system in tact.

After all, it's not the average household user who can take advantage of that.

The same can be said for the AMEX MR transfers. There should be a cap on those as well.

And finally, CO also needs to invest in technology solutions for reward travel. The fact that some partners still do not show up online contributes to EasyPass redemptions. And while CO phone agents have gotten better, you still all to often get an EasyPass pusher who doesn't want to spend the extra time to find the partner flight.

senatorgirth

First, the 50% EQM rule came along and really put a hit on my travel. Then I moved most of my business to WN whenever possible when CO closed its BOS PClub, but have still flown CO some (not enough to keep elite, but still adding miles here and there). But this latest major downgrade of OnePass is a crossing of a big Rubicon, and its a terrible change. CO obviously doesn't care about non-Elite business and they will now get even less of mine.

I have used EasyPass rewards in the past because my travel schedule is never flexible and thus I cannot play the scheduling games that are usually necessary to get standard rewards. This latest devaluation marks a major sea change for me; without the known ability to redeem my miles -- at any price -- they have significantly less value for me. J. Edward is correct --- this is a MAJOR devaluation of miles that will have a big, long-term impact because it means miles simply mean much, much less. And please spare the "other airlines are worse" stuff. This latest move by CO is a big, fetid pile of garbage. That other airlines dished out a bigger, stinkier pile provides no consolation.

to CO. I wish the major airlines like CO would just die off already so that a new era of air travel -- closer to the WN model of no B.S. fees, no deceptive practices, no byzantine rules, no now-you-see-it-now-you-don't FF policies -- can take over. Losing money? Raise your dam fares! I've had more than enough of the nickle and diming. The airlines are just BEGGING for government regulation of their sordid practices. Airlines executives are now on par with used car dealers and loan sharks for their duplicity...and sinking fast.

Vulcan

For Northwest, EasyPass Reward availability will still be based on P and C classes for front cabin rewards


Thanks Soctt. I only suggest it is made clear when posted on the site for the 'masses'.

lizinatizzy

Most of these posts still miss the point: Continental gets PAID for all the points that Chase gives its cardholders. So Continental mints all these miles, inflating the currency, then claims people claiming unrestricted awards are not paying enough. The solution, of course, is what Delta eventually adopted last week: Write a reward chart that accurately reflects all of the new miles being minted.

But it is an insult to CO flyers (elite or not) and even Chase customers to say, "Hey, we urge you to earn these miles, but now there are times the miles are worthless."

That is awful business. It is no way to run an airline, a country (I'm thinking Zimbabwe without the moral equivalency) or any business.

You create a program, earn money with it, then tell customers who have played in good faith that they cannot claim the rewards they were promised.

It is despicable.

Steve M

I don't think an R-class fare is required. What is required is R class seat inventory, without respect to whether an R-class fare is currently published for the route. The two are very different things.

Totoro

If you don't have flexibility, then expect to pay more. Supply and demand curves intersect at different points for different goods/services. Even if CO allocates the same number of reward seats for EWR-HNL, seats on the Fri flight will run out long before the Tues or Wed flights. What is unfair about that? If you want a seat on the Fri flight, you should book before the other people. WN has capped their number of award seats per flight as well.

Your complaint is really no different from complaining that Fri/Sun fares cost more, which they also do on WN, not because those flights cost more to operate but rather because higher demand exists.

I agree that CO has devalued OP miles but not catastrophically. I do not have data to comment further because I do not know whether the number of standard reward seats per flight has changed. I refuse to book EP rewards anyway, and certainly a large portion of the FF community feels the same.

HeathrowGuy

This change is laughable. Seriously.

If anything, I expected CO to begin the long-overdue redefinition of legacy FF programs such as OnePass from "defined benefit" schemes with fixed award levels and mutually frustrating inventory management practices to "defined contribution" programs where the marketplace determines the amount of miles needed for a ticket on a route-by-route basis.

keithguy

Doubtful. FF programs are complicated as they currently are. To move to such a program would make things even more complicated and frustrate even more people (customers and employees). "How many miles does it take to fly from Newark to Houston?"

In terms of EasyPass changes, will the high mileage balance credit card spenders actually be upset by inventory restrictions or will they just book a different flight that has M or R class available? More importantly, will they be upset enough to switch credit cards/FF programs? I doubt it.