Zorak

They're just jumping into other pots though. Free agent frogs are still frogs. Or something. Sorry, I lost the metaphor (guess it croaked)

----

I have long wondered about the macro effects of loyalty programs though (and I realize this is by no means an original thought).

Suppose you have a town with several sandwich shops, and each one is better in some areas and worse in others but they're all roughly the same and cost the same. Then one creates a loyalty card program where if you get 9 stamps the 10th sandwich is free. So they're making less per sandwich in aggregate but if they can attract more business they make it up on volume.

So then every other shop follows suit and institutes the same program. The net effect is that we're back to where we started, all the shops offer roughly speaking the same product except now they've collectively lowered their revenue by 10%. Which is great for sandwich consumers but not so much for the shops.

I'm not sure where this train of thought is going either, except that maybe there are multiple equilibria.

davetravels

AND, along with that theme . . . . .

A number of years ago, I was having dinner with a friend at The Lobster Pot in Provincetown. He commented that, every time they put a lobster in the pot - - - he could hear it SQUEAL!!!

So, I guess us Amex waiver people are the squealing lobsters!

<Squealing here on FlyerTalk!>

MSPeconomist

Then the sandwich shops either raise prices, lower quality, or make the sandwiches smaller.

However, the first sandwich shop to offer the loyalty card probably was able to increase its prices because it had a bunch of captive customers who would buy the sandwich for the punch on the card regardless of price. Some of these sandwiches were probably paid/reimbursed by the employer, so that the tenth sandwich was a true freebie for the customer.

In fact, all of the sandwich shops were able to raise their prices along the way because once someone had several punches on their card, there would be a tendency to continue at the same sandwich shop regardless of price differences (if the customers even checked prices at that point, especially if the employer was paying as suggested above).

The net effect is that the presence of loyalty programs, even if copied by all of the town's sandwich joints, tends to make demand less elastic and thereby result in somewhat higher prices (or lower quality and/or smaller sandwiches, perhaps with worse customer service too).

jrl767

WHY OH WHY are we subjected to SO MANY in-depth economic analyses of EVERY post that tries to inject an interesting or humorous or counterpoint perspective ?!?!?!?

apodo77

For closure to this thread I submitted a complaint via e-mail on 9-29-17 and got a phone call from Delta Customer Service:

- She acknowledged 16 on the upgrade list (I was wrong on 13 on the thread title) was upgraded and should not have been. At this point I mentioned I wasn't 1 and that is the person who got screwed out of an upgrade but wanted to let Delta know what happened so it won't happen to others.

- She mentioned proper upgrade procedures were not followed by the GA and the station manager has been alerted of the situation (or something like that) to discuss with the GA on what happened for re-training.

- She offered me 9000 miles or $75 gift card as a customer service gesture for letting Delta know of the GA's actions. I declined and asked if either one could be donated to charity. She said she would check.

bennos

FWIW, it's probably easiest if you accept the skymiles and donate them yourself.

https://www.delta.com/buygftxfer/dis...teMiles.action

apodo77

Thanks. She did say she would deposit them if it was a no and I could do it myself.
Said she would e-mail me by tomorrow.

MSPeconomist

This would make the upgrade priority rules/true list and the processing of upgrades extremely opaque. It would give GAs and other employees almost unlimited and unchecked ability to effectively rearrange upgrade lists at will. If this happens, upgrades lose any semblance to an earned and published benefit of FF status.

bergamini

I'm not saying that it be a free for all but if they codified it, like if a DM goes 10 segments without an UG then their priority on the next flights becomes the equivalent of a RUC and it's a PM then it's 15 or 20. I have twice gone > 10 flights out an UG as a PM on K or higher fares this year. I was ready to switch and then I got some projects where the GAIP fares were reasonable. If it's codified then it wouldn't be unchecked. But I suppose in this instance that point is moot because under my scenario #13 wouldn't be #13 .

I'm just glad the GA is getting counseled on the situation. I wish this happened every time there was shenanigans.

FlytheTail

Gotta love DL's own mileage value of $0.0083 per mile! Yeah, that's about right.

MSPeconomist

They everyone on FT will be trying to plan so that flight #10 is one where an upgrade is really valuable and otherwise tough to get. Also, would you count flights for which the upgrade wasn't requested or wasn't eligible (too many on the PNR or someone without a DL FF number on the PNR, for example)? How about the JFK-LAX/SFO transcons? RJ-200s without FC? Would "upgrades" to C+ count?

No thanks. I want transparency.

1973 Ford Pinto

I don't see how that would be less transparent than the current system, since I have zero ability to know if the person in front of me on the list is on a RUC, what fare class they have, what medallion level, etc. It's already completely opaque now. You don't have any way to verify anything. We just have what they tell us the rules are. There are even gaps in that (nobody really knows how paid W fares work, eg).

1973 Ford Pinto

Also, most travelers don't have the ability to strategically plan 10 straight upgrade misses AND the 11th flight after that to maximize an upgrade value.

bergamini

I think it would be fairly easy to implement a transparent method for rewarding those with a long series of UG misses. They are never going to do it but I routinely code for far more complex scenarios in real life. Throw that stuff on a Hadoop cluster and create an algorithm to value each customer and then see which customers are profitable but not getting UG's and throw them a bone. Never going to happen but could definitely be done. But probably not with Delta IT but it most certainly could be done

yohanson

So Delta is blaming it on the GA. If that's true, I wonder why a GA would randomly pick number 16 on the list to upgrade.