AA_EXP09

We already drink those because both are present in water at 10^-7 mol/L

doubleA

Yep. And let's be honest, they have made some fairly major advances in domestic hard product for frequent fliers. WiFi, FC in regionals, SkyPriority deployed (now int'l) in a consistent fashion (my bags, when checked, do usually come off first), HOOUs, network reach and frequency... and I benefit in great ways from a convenient partner network that fulfills a lot of those as well (AS, AF/KL).

It seems like they're also going to be able to count on the fact that they've made themselves a good product that now allows them to capitalize on it. It's extremely inconvenient for me to switch primary carriers or the network advantage without making my life a little less enjoyable in the process. And I fly 50/50 B/M and LUT (rarely in the middle it seems) across 110K miles last year, and looking like 150K miles this year.

bubbashow

How many n/s flights does AS have from DTW to SEA?

US?

Exactly.

GRALISTAIR

Very deep - or something --?

bartendress

Valid point. Don't hold your breath awaiting a queue of folks to admit they belong to this club.

javabytes

That's exactly the point. It's just water, but you can still twist it to sound threatening and get people to agree with you that it should be banned.

Just like you can do in a focus group.
Q (McKinsey recent MBA Grad): "Would you like to have better award availability?"
A (AmEx Holders): "Ooh, yes please!"

Never mind the fact that the awards are now going to cost far more, and you won't earn as many miles to begin with. Details be damned, we know what we want...

GRALISTAIR

[QUOTE=hfly;18231775]1) The amount of miles and MQM's that one earns IS IN FACT determined by fare paid. A YBM or Biz or F ticket earns 150%, while other earn 100%. I can in fact envision them knocking LU and T fares down to 75% or 50%, as this would be in tune with MANY airlines around the World, not just AFKL as stated by some above, but pretty much all European, many Middle Eastern and many Asian programs. QUOTE]

Now this makes sense - no more silly MRs

exwannabe

[QUOTE=GRALISTAIR;18233158]It is also easy to fly there on DL SM for 25K from ATL and IND (via ATL).

But I am certain that in the case of DL SMs this 25K fare "does not count" as a low award for some reason or other.

DLdweeb

If LUT flyers were indeed a drag on DL, why do they keep offering the fares? Because they need those flyers to maximize profit per flight. A plane half full with Q and up fare pax probably loses money. Airlines need those LUT pax to fill the planes and maximize profit, because the incremental revenue falls straight to the bottom line. Now if they could fill the plane with Y pax, life would be great for them, but that rarely, if ever, happens.

If DL hates LUT flyers, just stop offering those fare buckets. Simple as that.

doubleA

I think you're missing the point-- the LUT flyers are motivated by price, and in some cases enforced by price due to company policies. This will stop or diminish offering high-value-customer level rewards and perks to the LUT flyers.

It may even afford them the opportunity to further compete on price in the LUT fare market given that they're not baking in the cost of high-value-customer level rewards for non-HVC passenger fare buckets.

And yes, of course, this is going to make a lot of people on FT upset because they're frequent flyers in the LUT fare buckets, and there is a sense of entitlement granted by the airline for those achievements... So yes, they're definitely going to be losing something in the process of this transition. The only question I can't tell is where I might fall in the new system, so I have a bit of apprehension about it as well.

GRALISTAIR

LUT fares 50% of the MQM
HKQ fares 75% of th MQM
BM fares 100% of the MQM
Y fares 125 % of the MQM
any F fare 150% of the MQM

do MRs to your hearts content and you will get 50% of the MQM at best

GRALISTAIR

A college professor once told me to stop highlighing EVERYTHING in my textbook

Why - I asked

ALL EMPHASIS -IS NO EMPHASIS was his reply.

SFO777

That's probably true.

Not necessarily. I fly DTW-SFO/SJC a lot and only occasionally fly DL. Why?
(1) I'd rather pay $129-$149 on AA vs. $700 on DL, and...
(2) DL's DTW-SFO schedule is crap. Nothing between 3:46P and 7:35P.
So I either wait in the DTW SC or make a connection. Same difference.
I get a superior F product, a real meal, leg room and save $500. Sounds pretty efficient in my book.

jsmith50

So, I'll bite on this...I have been told several times by DL that I am a HVC. I flew 300K+ miles BIS in 2011, spent over $100K (mostly through full J tpacs, and refundable Y bought last minute) in 2011 and I have banked millions, literally millions of SMs (DL dining, AmEx promotions, DL promotions, Hilton double dip bonuses, etc.) that I have virtually never redeemed in the 11 years now that I have been flying DL. Why, then, would I care negatively about a revenue-based program? Simple...further devaluation of the SMs that I have accumulated. I figure that at some point, my days of heavy flying and long hours with entire months some times spent on the road will eventually come to an end. The accumulation of FF miles is a spoil of living such a life in business. When I walk away, I want to be able to use those miles for my wife and I to travel and fly whatever class of service we want to sit in and never have to worry about giving DL a credit card number ever again to purchase a ticket.

If DL goes to a strictly fare-based program, then those miles I have accumulated with plans on using them in retirement have zero value or very limited value. For those reasons, if this is the future direction of the program, it stinks! It screws over every one of us that has been loyal to this airline for so many years when we could have been flying a competitor for less money. It is precisely because of loyalty that I have stuck around with DL now for the last decade through all the bad business decisions and through the current and ongoing devaluation of the SM program. It will also be precisely because of the feeling of being stabbed in the back that I would seriously consider the chance to status match to another airline and see what the grass is like on the other side!

javabytes

I'll bite. I'm probably not in Delta's HVC club. I travel a fair amount for work (not a road warrior by any stretch of the imagination) and a fair amount for pleasure. My travel is almost exclusively domestic, save for an occasional TATL, and my fares usually range from M to T. I don't buy up fare classes unless I want to use a SWU (and then do so on my dime), so I take whatever DL is selling. That said, Delta is usually NOT the cheapest fare around. Everybody else at my company flies UA or AA. I will usually go out of my way to book DL if they are within a reasonable amount more than competitors, even if travel is a 1-stop instead of non-stop, unless I really need to get somewhere as quickly as possible. This includes driving an extra 30-60 minutes to another airport. (Frequent upgrades results in being able to work better, and IROPS recovery is another intangible benefit. So yes, I can defend my travel purchase patterns to an accountant with a straight face.) Add on top of that a SC membership and a DL AmEx card, and although I might not be a white envelope guy, I would think there is benefit to DL in having me stick around and fill their seats 75 times a year... if upgrade percentages drop precipitously and mileage redemption becomes significantly devalued, you can be sure I'm going to shop around more.

And that, I think, is the gap that mileage programs were intended to fill. Serious comparison shoppers (which a vast majority of the public are) will always grab the lowest cost offering. They may or may not have FF accounts; if they do, they have relatively low balances and probably little or no status because their flying is so distributed. Your highest paying customers are going to pay for premium cabins and probably could give a hoot about FF benefits. Somewhere in the middle is a spot airlines have carved out where they convince people not to comparison shop who otherwise might (or at least, not to comparison shop as much). And people in that group likely represent a good contingent of airline elite tiers. They are people that would probably spread their travel around if they were always after the lowest cost and greatest convenience, but have found a reason not to do so. While maybe not super HVCs, I can't imagine most are unprofitable for airlines, or that you'd want to get rid of them. That is a group I would have thought airlines would seek to maintain, but maybe if they continue monetizing the hell out of the kettles, it doesn't make sense to keep doing so.

(And yes, I have CO Plat - now UA 1P - but I don't actually fly much with CO.)