Raffles

One key difference though.

In casino-land, you are dropping your own money.

Most road warriors are dropping their employers money. A change in job, in employer, in corporate preferred carrier and the flights go away. It actually makes more sense to incentivise less heavy travellers who DO spend their own money.

baccarat_king

I never bought the differentiation of OPM with regard to "value." Remember, a road-warrior is also likely to "move companies" and remember the loyalty he had to his carrier preference when he moves to the new "road warrior" job. So, this "road warrior" brings big travel dollars with him/her to the next position (potentially).

Justifying incentive for those that "spend less" is a slippery and rather complicated slope. And, let's face it, many do spend there own money and spend lots of it. Case in point, I pay for all of my airfare personally and I *hate* flying in a non-premium cabin. (and my flying is 90% long-haul, mostly transatlantic) I have my limits, and I also understand my options very well. I am not sure if I am a heavy traveler (or not), will re-qualify Delta Diamond on my own dime this year with less than 8k MQMs in roll-over (with 125K MQMs, elite qualifying miles required for Diamond).

Oh, and don't think for a second that the "big players" who are consistently dropping $10k-$250K per trip at gaming properties are "really" spending their "own money." In most cases, it's small/medium sized business owners. And, in many cases, their companies ("special compensation" *cough*) are financing their gaming "habit." Hence, why there are so many interesting regulations with regard to casino funds and wire transfers.

YoungSoloTraveler

Are companies too lazy to tighten their travel budgets or just don't want to anger their best employees. If I was buying tickets for my employees, I'd make sure its the lowest price possible.

Getting ripped off for a couple hundred dollars so an employee can earn a few more miles is just poor management.

sbm12

Some companies still by "flexible" tickets because they believe that saves them money over time. Others are just too big to be able to effectively manage to that level, with the cost of saving a couple hundred dollars being much more than that. But when you read here about people hating on their corporate travel policies or booking portals, that's the other side of this game.

84fiero

Depending on the nature of the organization's travel, fully flexible, refundable tickets may be the best option in some instances. Where I work, most of the trips are often subject to change due to the kind of work involved and factors outside our control or influence. Using the cheapest, non-refundable tickets for those trips would, over the long run, cost more...as one manager learned the hard way once.

kokonutz

If you are a consultant being billed at $400 or $500 per hour (earning far less than that, natch), a time-value analysis easily justifies flexible tickets for your employer. Particularly if your firm is big enough to negotiate a discount.

I firmly agree with baccarat_king: a casino doesn't much care if you are gambling with personal money or company money. Neither should an airline. And yes, people who fly on OPM will very often keep flying on OPM at their next job too.

I might hate it personally, but if I ran an airline my FFP would look a hell of a lot more like DL/UA than AA.

Kagehitokiri

airlines are just so different from everything else, i think a lot of comparisons dont work

everything else has high value individuals whose spending dwarfs even EY Residence

while airlines are mainly focused on maximizing large/medium corporate/etc
its about numbers and frequency, rather than high value transactions

kokonutz

True airline 'whale' customers fly private. @:-)

What airlines ideally want are customers who fly a lot on higher flexible fares. That and people like me who only buy business and F tickets.

sbm12

Unless you've switched from your previously disclosed habit of buying deep discount biz/first fares you're actually not nearly as valuable to the company as you'd like to believe.

oliver2002

Our company is 'best-buy' ex Germany since years now (to Germany they usually make deals with LH) and this year I struggle to stay in line with corporate policy and stay on the alliance of my choice. But it is possible. My colleagues don't bother and take whatever the corp TA decides is the cheapest. They all lost status. Its mildly annoying when you travel with them: no lounge access (I sometimes guest one, but when with larger groups we are in the terminal) and during irrops it sometimes happens that I get the last seat on the alternative and my boss doesn't.

Best buy is also terrible when plans change (and they do change quite a bit): its when carriers put a smile on their face and openly loot you on the spot.

kokonutz

Sure I'll never be GS-type level, particularly since I am airline agnostic. But they'd rather have someone like me buying their cheapest premium seat than someone like me buying their cheapest coach seat. Particularly on domestic routes when I am one of the only premium rev tickets in the cabin, surrounded by upgraders.

gpapadop

Sooooo...why did Chris leave Boarding Area? He never responded to my email

sbm12

Given reports from the airlines of 50%+ and growing paid premium cabin seats I doubt this is the case particularly often.

kokonutz

Doesn't that include folks upgrading for ToDs (ie, 'ancillary revenue'? ), particularly on domestic. When I fly domestic F and look at the upgrades it nearly every seat is an upgrade of one sort or another (conceding that examples =/= evidence).

A better question is why he put his blog there in the first place. @:-)

Raffles

I probably read 10 of his articles over the year.

That said, it is 10 more than I will read now without BA to bring me the summary headline.