Hi everyone..

this is officially my first post on Flyertalk

So here's my question... I ended up with 73,929 EQMs in 2008. Any chance CO will bump me up to Platinum Elite? Is there a way to request the upgraded status?

Welcome. Probably not.

Ricoche -

Welcome! You can always try contacting OnePass (i believe the email is [email protected] or something like that).

but I agree with CM. Its probably not going to happen.

Good luck!

Indeed, probably not, unless those were a really expensive 73K+ that you flew. They will at least check to see how valued (read valuable) a customer you are though.

Good luck...the climberboy was at 74k last year (2007), most of them F tickets, and CO didn't give him plat.

Bad move, CO. In 2008, he earned his status on UA.

if it were a few miles maybe, but close to 7K, no I don't think so.

The OP is only 1071 miles short of 75K, but I still highly doubt that CO will gift it.

Out of curiousity, why didn't you do a MR with him for the last 1k?

Welcome to the OP!!!!

I have never needed it yet, but CO has contacted friends of mine, and offered to sell them the miles to jump to the level they missed. I do believe that they had been that level the year before, and just missed it. They contacted them with via the mail. Hey, you never know, keep the faith!

He, um, well...didn't earn it. That's something I truly don't get. Why do people who fall just short think that they should get the next level just because they came just short? And I'm not even going after FT-like-minded people. If you are Joe Schmuck the business traveler and your status matters to you for any number of good and perfectly valid reasons, why would you not do your homework to ensure that you meet your goal? It's no different than a sales rep making his or her number for the quarter or year. If an end-of-year MR or weekend to Whocaresville is needed to get those last few miles or segments, then guess what? Pack your bags.

The sad part is the airlines are in a lose-lose boat...they lose by encouraging bad behavior since they created their own bad precedent of bumping people up, and they lose by giving those next-level goodies to people that did not earn them.

I'm not one of those people from UA-land who thinks an EUA system is patently offensive, nor am I an upgrade snob. For the record, I have never held an airline status.

So, in the end, your mistakenly spiteful comment is completely lost on me.

Spiteful? Hardly. I didn't whine, complain, beg or even post -- I simply didn't drink the CO Kool-aid the following year and sometimes chose flights on other airlines.

It should be a business decision, not a policy decision. We already know that CO hands out comp Silver, Gold and even Plat to a wide variety of people for marketing purposes - if someone flew 74k on paid F tickets, or even 65k on paid F tickets, giving them Platinum seems like a good business decision, as it's likely to ensure continued loyalty.

Of course the beancounter might offer the opposing analysis - if they already paid F every time without Plat status, why should we give them the status since it's unlikely they will stop doing the same thing next year without the status. Perhaps the beancounter might speculate that giving the person Plat status would raise their upgrade probability and perhaps influence them to buy discounted coach fares instead of F. The underlying goal of a loyalty program is to influence customer purchasing behavior - giving this customer Plat is unlikely to influence or change their existing behavior which is already optimal. That's why beancounters make bad marketers and business strategists.

Now if someone flew 74k on L or S type fares, then the appropriate business decision is to either deny the request (bad cop) or incentivize the request by telling the customer to fly x times in a certain minimum fare class by y date, and their status would be renewed (good cop).