I'm curious as to the opinions regarding the email message last night from Frontier regarding their Business Travel Program? Here's the text in a nutshell...

"During a review of existing programs, it was determined that the Frontier small business program, Business Travel Program (BTP), would migrate to the Best Care Business (BCB) program used by Midwest � which will be rebranded under the Frontier Airlines� name. The Best Care Business program works on a point system. Businesses must spend a minimum of $5,000 annually on Frontier to qualify. For every $1,000 spent, the member earns one point. Points can be redeemed for waivers and favors, elite status, club passes and free tickets."

As a small business owner, I for one am not very happy. The BTP was simple and straightforward. You earned a 3% rebate on any fare. And, the accumluated funds sat in your credit bank until you were ready to use them.

The new system is a huge devaluation of the program. For instance, it takes 20 points (which equates to $20,000 spent) for a free round trip ticket. In the old BTP system $20,000 netted $600 in the credit bank. For my company, that's easily 3 roundtrips to most of the business destinations we fly.

With the previous devaluation of Early Returns miles, luggage fees, and now the change to the BTP program, it's time to consider another carrier for the bulk of our flying as I'm sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed.

I have been an ardent supporter of Frontier. But, this decision on the BTP program really upsets me. The new tagline at Frontier says, More perks. More choices. More value. I'm afraid I respectfully disagree.

That's looks like a big difference, and not one for the better. I'm not especially familiar with Best Care Business, but my impression was that BCB was aimed to give something to companies with volumes to low for their normal corporate discount fares. The threshold was $10k annual, so at least they're reducing it to $5k to avoid freezing out too many Frontier customers.

A letter wouldn't hurt, and perhaps they will modify the program to something more valuable than what this appears to be. I wish I knew more about the two programs to know if there's any (even small) benefit to the customer by going with Midwest's plan, but if the Frontier plan was simply a 3% rebate kept in a travel bank for use at will, that's hard to beat.

As for reconsidering who you travel with, it's undestandable to react sharply to this kind of thing. However when the dust settles, it probably makes sense to step back and evaluate the plusses and minuses of each carrier. If something is devalued to the point where it is less valuable than what competitors offer, that's a negative. If something is devauled but still more valuable than what competitors offer, moving to the competitor only hurts you more.

I don't know what business programs other airlines offer, so I'm not really any good at helping you with specifics.

The other thing to be careful about is to not base a decision too firmly on things which can easily change. For example, we know that the UA/CO merger will probably lead to policy changes. Southwest's FF program is going through a major rework, one which (so the buzz says) isn't as beneificial to lower-fare travelers as the current plan. Now there's always the risk that anything can change for any carrier, so take that for what it's worth. But with few exceptions, most carriers seem to be tightening things up incrementally in various area. So something currently better at Airline A may be in their sites to reduce. And if you chose that airline based on that particular item, the benefit is gone.

It looks like the new Frontier plan is pretty much like conventional airline business programers, where buying airfare earns points, and then those points can be redeemed for various things.

Most airlines give less points for discounted fares than for top-tier fares. Several (all?) of them are far less generous in their home airports...Delta earns you a lot less for travel to/from their hub cities, for examlpe. Some have minimum thresholds to enter or minimum thresholds at which you can be terminated.

The Frontier program seemed to be quite a bit different than the others, rebating directly. I have not run into anybody who has a business program like this so far.

One question...does Southwest have a business program which earns awards or generates rebates?

No one is ever happy.

Well, that is not exactly a fair statement. How is degrading a benefit going to make anyone happy? As knope2001 said, you now must reevaluate the total program and see if this airline is still the best airline for you based upon other airlines total programs.

No. WN's 'SWA Biz' program may not even exist anymore, but if it does or did, it was or is pretty meaningless.

A lot depends on what you value primarily. I'm big on schedule and hate burning time on connections when I can fly nonstop. While I'm a big YX (now F9) flyer, I do find myself somtimes flying the competition because of better flight times. The amount of time wasted on a connection isn't worth the money saved, IMHO.

I thought there was something more to it, but SWA Biz didn't really seem to be much at all. Maybe they'll adopt AirTran's a2b program, although you have to spend $50k per year on AirTran to qualify, which is much higher than I've seen in other programs. (I would be curious how popular and successful a2b is for AirTran because it's a high threshold and only gives you perks like free name changes or complementary upgrade to biz from full-fare coach.)

One thing which the new Frontier program offers which I have not see in other programs is the ability to use credits to waive standby fees or change fees. This could be meaningful.

$20,000 spend gets you 20 credits, which is a fee round trip. I think you mentioned your typical is $200 R/T.

$4,000 spent gets you 4 credits, which is a certficate to waive the $100 change fee

$2,000 spent gets you 2 credits, which is a certificate to waive the $50 same-day confirmed standby fee.

Those two rewards get you $500 benefit for $20,000 spent, while the free ticket is perhaps a $200 benefit for $20,000 if your average business ticket is $200 R/T.

The other way those rewards may be beneficial is that the "free ticket" you get appears to be subject to the same limits as a normal FF award. That means it can be hard to use when you want to...and if you're using it to cut business costs, usually business travel isn't terribly flexible to find award seats available. United, Delta and American programs all have higher-level "enhanced availability" awards which are far far more expensive.

So while the ability to use the free-ticket many not dovetail when you want to use it, the free-standby or free-change awards work anytime you might be stuck paying that fee.

Now if you rarely pay those sorts of fees, then using your points to buy packs of those waiver coupons isn't beneficial. But it looks like this is a better deal than saving up points for a free R/T on Frontier or any airline...IF you now and then are getting hit with those fees.

I spoke to a BTP representative late today and in typical Frontier fashion, she was great. She said that I was the first person that she had spoken to regarding the changes, pro or con. Her supervisor was in her office at the time of my call and neither had any more information on the program change, other than what was stated in the email message.

Off the record, they both admitted the new program wasn't nearly as valuable as the old one. They encouraged me to express my point-of-view with the Program Manager who is leading the transition. I've sent off an email to her.

As of right now, the grace period for the change over to the Midwest program is just a little over 2 weeks away (Oct. 22). Not a lot of time to use up our existing credit bank, but that is what we plan to do as best we can.

We just cannot afford to let the available cash we've earned expire and turn into the new point system where there are only 6 rewards to redeem points for. Being based in Denver, there is absolutely no value to us in the Best Care Club, so that rules out 2 rewards. Considering that our flyers have Summit status, there is no value in the confirmed travel coupons, waive of adminstrative fees, or Executive membership. So, that leaves us with the only reward remaining, a free-round trip ticket with restrictions and an implied value of $600. So, as you can see, not a good spend on typical $200 r/t fares.

I'll let folks know if/when I receive a response back from the Program Manager.

Thanks for the update. The Summit benefits pretty much cover what those lesser awards get you.

I wonder if you might qualify for negotiated fares? Not sure how much annual travel expense you need to hit to qualify. Midwest was more aggressive and advanced in the corporate sales area, and I recall hearing that they were going to target Denver with the merger.

I hope you have success with the program manager. It looks like the legacy Frontier program was unsually generous, and nobody else offered anything close. Now it looks like the business program will be similar to what the big airlines offer. Maybe the specifics differ a bit, but largely the same program as you get with the other airlines.

Please let us know what you hear.

This is interesting because Midwest was very agressive courting MKE businesses with negotiated rates. I think that service and the attention to the MKE business community, was a key factor in businesses' support of the airline.

Now, if Frontier comes in and downgrades the business oriented programs and stiffens the entry level for negotiated rates, it will bode ill for the airline and be helpful to its competitors. I know several executives who have maintained ties to both Midwest and Northwest/Delta over the years. Any adverse actions could help Delta. Or the other airlines as the case may be.

I think this is a tremendous opportunity for Frontier to step up and be a business friendly airline like Midwest was. If Frontier can continue what Midwest had and spread that support to DEN they will surely be able to differentiate themselves from Southwest. Hopefully they will seize the opportunity.

That's true in general, although the particular decision which Sutmblefoot is (rightfully) quite unhappy about is that the Frontier small business program is being discontinued in favor of Frontier's. Frontier's is actually loosening up Midwest's a bit because YX required $10k in annual spending to qualify, but Stumblefoot's e-mail says that threshold will be $5k.

So from the Midwest customer perspective, this program is actually being improved by having a lower level to get in. It's the Frontier customers who are losing the unusually simple and generous 3% rebate plan who are seeing the downside.

This is all about the smaller business program for companies not engaged in negotiated fares (typcially because they are too small). What this does not tell us at all is what Midwest's corporate sales team is doing and how their policies may have changed, good or bad.

Midwest's corporate sales team regularly won awards and stacked up well against the big boys (AA, UA, etc) in corparate travel department surveys, and they had deals with big companies including some without big footprints in MKE/MCI/OMA. I heard that shortly after the merger, the corporate sales team was an area where YX was much more accomplished and experienced than F9, and attention would be turned to better mine Denver as job 1.

I have heard nothing about how coroprate sales it going, either in traditional YX markets or in the legacy F9 markets. Hard to know.

Would be curious to know how low the threshold is for negotiated rates. Frontier's site (which still shows the old programs including the 3% rebate program) says 30 round trips per month to qualify for negotiated rates. At $200 each, that's $73,000 per year. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought the annual travel minimum was $25k to qualify for negotiated rates on Midwest. Since they are moving the Midwest direction in the small business program, perhaps they are doing the same with corporate sales and will have a lower threshold.

Here's the latest...

The good folks managing the BTP program are listening. They've changed the award matrix here as they continue to contemplate the changes they want to make to the program.

The program manager has shared with me that they are still evaluating the point structure. But, one thing for certain is that a round-trip ticket will be 15 points or less. This is 5 points less than what was previously required in the Midwest Best Care Business program, or $5,000 less in spending. As you remember, this is what really got my dander up. And, although I still think 15 points is too much for a restricted round-trip ticket, at least the point requirement is heading in the right direction.

I was also told that once they move into Phase 2 of the automation process, which should be sometime in the December/January timeframe, they have several more redemption options they are going to add to the program, although these options were not disclosed at this time.

So, while it's still wait-and-see time, the good news is that Frontier is listening to its customers and the program is still under review.

That's excellent news on a couple of fronts:

(a) It shows that they're listening and at least open to input rather than a nice form-letter relpy

(b) It shows that they view business travelers as a worthwhile segment to compete for, not just give lip service to.

Of course I'm sure you'd ideally like to see the 3% rebate program stay, but I suspect they just viewed that as too costly. However if their points program is a notch or two better than what other airlines offer, that's good.

What might be nice...and maybe they view this as too costly...would be to make the capacity-limited free ticket good for travel or for $xxx off of any paid ticket. Some other programs have "enhanced availability" rewards, but they are much much higher than the standard award levels.

I find it interesting that the link to the awards table is to the midwestairlines.com site, not the frontierairlines.com site. Probably not rolling it out on Frontier until it is more finalized.

Anyway, thanks very much for contacting them. Who knows if they would be reviewing and further modifying this if people like you hadn't spoke out.

I like your idea of $xxx off any paid ticket Knope.

When I communicated with the program manager, I also suggested that I felt 15 points was still many points for a restricted round-trip ticket. But, maybe they could offer two point tiers...

1. Unrestricted Ticket = 15pts.
2. Restricted Ticket = 10pts.

Frontier sent an email message yesterday stating the conversion from the former BTP program to the new BCB program is underway and the first phase will be complete by Monday.

They also announced the new points program and you can tell that they did listen to the feedback provided. It will now only require 10 points for a free roundtrip ticket. This is 50% less than their original intention of 20 points that they had announced in early October.

The new point structure in BCB would equate to roughly $300 under the old BTP. That seems reasonable to me.