Microtat

Hi mileage runners..

whats your way of attaining status if you dont fly for business, aka fork out the bucks from your own pocket?

Be loyal and fly mainly with the airline you enroll in? Or
Have a good mix between your airline and deals,
Or
Which ever is the cheapest deal?

This is no survey, just that i am seeing too many deals on another airline and i am doing not as much flying with my airline... starting to feel bad, maybe stupidly..

thanks..

sbm12

It isn't your airline. It is theirs. It does not love you. There's no reason to show it irrational love in return.

Status is great if it helps you get things for less total money than you'd spend otherwise. But if you're able to just buy the better product/schedule/whatever outright rather than worry about loyalty and a long-term accrual of benefits then why wouldn't you do that??

RustyC

Well, with the forced demise of distance-based miles and all the devaluations AND partial credit for partner miles, the golden age of the programs is clearly over. I don't even think we're in the silver or bronze age. Only biz travelers on high-fare tickets get the best bennies now, and their companies hate to shell out the money and are always trying to come up with blunt-instrument policies to try to spend less.

I've been self-funded for about 98% of my travels for 27 years now (100% since 1996). It used to be I could do very well with hub-attack fares from CO or NW against DL in ATL. Back in 1993 I took a series of NYC trips on CO on a triple-mileage deal with routings via IAH sometimes (ATL-IAH-EWR) to boost the miles, all booked on easySABRE greenscreens with command lines. I remember I had no way to get to Florida and earn CO miles then because they didn't publish any fares from ATL to there.

So loyalty could limit your destination options, especially in days when there were 6 or 7 legacies. My fave would be a $300 or so hub-attack ATL-HNL RT, which came around maybe 1-2 times a year. Dead-of-winter Europe could drop to low $300s as well.

It's liberating in some ways to not be locked in and having to top 50K or 75K base. OTOH, these days I actually AM a bit loyal to Frontier over Spirit because Frontier is not quite as bad, and they have distance-based miles plus an elite program that makes the inflight experience a little more bearable. There's only one tier, though, and it only takes 20K base miles to reach it.

Microtat

Hi Sbm and Rusty..

thanks alot.. i am pretty new to this MR thingy, and while i know that the only way to get there is to use more of another airline’s cheap fare.. this is despite my airline programme treating me well, or maybe i was lucky..

regardless, thanks for your kind advice, would be looking at the cheapest way to get there, of course will not forget to be ‘alittle’ loyal.. that’s about the balance i can attain..

rbAA

If you are using a US based carrier program, the best alternative is usually to fly premium cabins on their partners though there can be some issues about qualifying dollar spend.. You'll generate more RDM's and EQD;s (if AA,) that way. So, elite status can be had cheaper. I use AA's program, but only fly AA when I need to burn SWU's (always looking for flight that can be immediately UPG'd,) or when they are lower cost or have a more convenient schedule that the others. EXP benefits are few any more, but I do like the FC lounges and priority seating and boarding, as well as using the shorter lines at the ticket counters. Occasionally I check bags and it saves there as well. But, I doubt that it's worth doing MR's any longer (of course I just did one RTW with an OSL-LHR-LAX RT backtrack,) soooo.....

cochinjew

I use AA exclusively flying domestically, use them to fly to CDG only to burn SWU. I have been pretty lucky with upgrades domestically, last year was 100% but this year I am only seeing about 75% because they changed their Upgrade policies. As mentioned above, the best benefits of being EXP is: SWU, Extra seats when F is not available, no charge for luggage (I fly Hav to Miami a lot, always with two suitcases but do a RTW just with my carry on and backpack). I am also Platinum on QR and I have already renewed it for this year, so from now on all my QR flights would be credited to AA, that earns a lot of EQDs and Miles (earning rate on AA is abysmal). I fly once a month at least to Europe and Asia so I can buy Asia to USA tickets on QR Premium (my next trip CMB PHL r/t on QR on Premium is a ridiculous 1151 usd!). Being Emerald on QR gets me entry into AA Clubs and I like the Flagship lounges that I can enter (mainly in MIA my USA base).
I think it is only fair that to be treated fairly by them, we have to be loyal to them, even if it means, a little bit more money and ignoring the competition domestically.

Microtat

GrayAnderson

In general (there are exceptions, but the rule is against it at this point), at this point I don't tend to actually credit flying on a given airline to that airline. There are a couple of reasons for this, but most of it comes down to the fact that with a few exceptions there are often better offers within a given airline's partner set out there.

With that being said, as long as there is a solid and definable benefit package which guide me to deal with a given airline, I'll route whatever business I can to them and may even absorb a modest price premium with them...but if you're looking at, say, the difference between a $600 flight and a $1000 flight on a similar product (in paid domestic F or an equivalent product) the $600 product is likely to win. For the record, this is how B6 has won my business on several occasions: A superior product (Mint) combined with usually winning on fares even if their FFP leaves quite a lot to be desired (for example, I don't appreciate getting screwed out of half of my points earnings when I have to call customer service to book because their website has delusions of adequacy when handling Mint-plus-connecting-flight fares, or their chronic inability to credit my fares to SQ instead, even when I load my SQ number in there).

Edit: The same thing applies to hotels, too: I'll pay 10-15% extra for an equivalent property at a chain I prefer (usually due to a combo of repeated positive experiences and a solid loyalty programme), but I won't usually pay 50% extra. On the other end of things, I'll also often pay a premium or take some inconvenience to avoid a chain I don't like (namely IHG, which is ironic since they were my first hotel loyalty progamme), but again this will always have a limit.