pricesquire

You can say that trust is very important, while at the same time saying you have no trust in frequent traveler programs.

Murphy123

This thread reminds of the last 4 surveys I completed for the company Aeroplan hired to conduct surveys by Aeroplan Advisors. Basically it dealt with "emotions" with Aeroplan! If any of you were unfortunate enough to receive the same 4 surveys (there was a group of them) you will know what I mean.

This morning the e-mail arrived from Luft - mileage accumulation of course has been really reduced to 25% and 50% status miles - for the normal Joe taking a Tango or Flex international vacation.

AustralianPoochie

I am just waiting to see what they (Qantas) do to their FF system.

I have made bookings for flights, several times from AU to NZ, and some flights within AU in subclasses of J, and some in subclasses of Y, up to a total of 515 SC, enough for Silver and also enough for that 500 SC to get 8000 QFF points.

I am not sure, to look forward positively, or negatively, in regards to when and/if QFF gets sold off.

Hopefully it won't happen till 2016.

Nanook

I would love to trust loyalty programs, I really want to. But only if that loyalty is returned. I was loyal to AA, but when I try to book a business class award
to Europe, they want to route me onto Air Berlin (no business class within europe), or on BA through LHR (extra taxes). No, I want to fly on American, so I have to book several oneway tickets to take advantage of my many miles. Same with United, they always want to send me through IAD or through IAH on an LH 380 (hate IAD and hate the business seats on that plane). They don't want the easiest and most direct route for me on an award ticket. So I go to whoever gets me what I want and be damned with the loyalty to any of them. If I have to pay for a ticket, I won't be loyal to them. I go for whoever has the best price for me at that moment.

GRALISTAIR

The trust is not important to me. The benefits of status are - if that makes sense.

antinseattle

Most travelers. 51 percent > are doing things that don't follow T & C's. if you think the are, then well, you haven't been around well seasoned frequent travelers. So why should loyalty programs be 100 percent honest, if customers are not 100 percent trustful?

GRALISTAIR

Exactly -and full of gamers.

Condosteve

Seems like a trend doesn't it, right up to the President of the USA ("If you like your Plan, you can keep it!..." Bengazi was a ..."demonstration gone bad?"... yeah right!! 4 dead people and AlQuaida, nah...)...everything is spin! "hey kid, Pssst...we'll give you this quarter (but it's gonna cost ya a buck (we just hope you don't figure it out right away)"
Example Delta...March 1st... "Hey kid, pssst, we're gonna give you complimentary upgrades on domestic flights to Hawaii now (for some reason Hawaii was never "domestic" for Delta...so maybe we just finished paying for the Hawaiin Islands this year or something?...) Oh, but now since we finally have coast to coast FLATBED service to SEA, SFO and LAX, ...those are no longer going to be considered "complimentary DOMESTIC upgrades" ...cuz NOW...we have really GOOD STUFF there! Get the Map drawing department and lobb off those three cities from the USA map for now and add Hawaii!
Afterall, Why offer THAT to the people that are brand loyal?? We'll just keep telling them that THEY are the most important people to us, "Our Most Loyal Flyers"...and most of them will fall for the compliment...after all...it's fluff, not stuff, that matters, right! Just keep pumping the PR. Thank you Mr Anderson!!
But Here's the thing you haven't considered...Many Diamonds and Platinums fly a turnaround-roundtrip or two to these destinations at the end of the year to maintain status... I'm not sitting in coach for 10 hours for status anymore...It's a Late New Year's resolution for me. And in talking to other premium flyers, there's a lot of disgust out there as you keep chipping away at these flyer programs. Someone up there has spent too much time "flying a desk" and not in a plane. This is your decision maker for these changes?? Go figure...

RonJon

I feel the same way about United, even though as a 1K I get 6 global (GPU) upgrades, the probability of being able to use them is almost nil. Currently on the waitlist for my next flight, UA will do their damnest to sell the upgrades rather than upgrade an elite fare paying passenger.

It is also necessary to stay on top of mileage credits for flights flown, "trust but verify" comes to mind here.

On UA's PerksPlus program, I have given up as it is almost impossible to track my employee's flight credits, and the points cost for rewards has gone out of sight, if you are able to use them.

Trust is reserved for things other than airlines.

BigE

Are people treating trust as if it were a binary decision? You do or don't? I'm pretty sure it's graded.

I think trust/reputation is extremely important with companies. Why should I try to accumulate miles/points if I can't trust the company to let me keep using them? A company could radically devalue their 'currency' overnight, or even terminate the program. The only thing stopping them from doing this is that they need our trust. Some companies deliberately cultivate trust by being transparent and principled. Others do not.

I trust UA now MUCH less than I used to. I have little trust in them to be fair about delivering upgrades to elite (rather than selling to the highest bidder). I don't fully trust them to honor million miler status. I don't fully trust them to continue making awards available, or to maintain the current price structure, or follow any principles. So I probably won't fly them as much.

nsx

When a program makes a small devaluation without notice, I infer that the management probably thought it was too minor to warrant an announcement. Such changes happen in almost all programs.

When a program makes a major change without notice, I presume an intent to prevent members from protecting themselves from the effects of the change. That's treachery, not loyalty.

Carlson tried this shortly after the ValueMags promotion in early 2002. I never used that program again. They have shown their colors repeatedly since then.

Amtrak did this during the "gravy train" CO to Amtrak to Choice to Southwest transfer deal. Choice has done it once or twice themselves.

Park N Fly did it recently. Parking Company of America did it about 10 years ago.

No-notice devaluations are a sign that the company doesn't take its own program seriously. Then why should I?

Luin

After the United Continental merger the Mileage Plus program became far less attractive than in the past. I believe that the merger of the two programs with so many elite status flyers that United had to do something to cut those numbers done. So they have changed the program to make it more difficult for those of us who travel only for pleasure to qualify. I have maintained Premier Gold for many years having to sometimes make a mileage run at the end of the year. I make at least 4 international trips yearly and find my status is important in helping me have a less than horrible journey. Now, in addition to requiring 50,000 paid miles the want me to spend $5,000 with United.com. They also have raised the mileage requirement for frequent flyer flights internationally in addition to lowering the bonus miles a few years ago. Where is the loyalty to those of us who have stuck with United for so many years?

ericfr

Very important to me. I'm FB Platinum Elite for life, and I now avoid flying Air France KLM (or fly just enough to keep my miles valid). Why? Because in the past 5 years they have changed the program twice and reduced by half the value of my 2m miles (Europe to Asia used to be 120K return in business class, now over 200K-240K). If they had compensated a good customer, they would not have lost $100Ks of business.

clif4nyc

last Fall, I flew United EWR to BOS to Munich to Trieste, they only credited the flight to Boston, though the miles back, Dubrovnik to ZAG to Munich to EWR were credited to my account, United said Lufthansa didn't honor K class tickets, though we were on the same plane, same section, so I was out of the 4,000 miles needed to achieve gold status w/ United, now they want me to pay $799 for the missing miles!! Since the takeover of Continental, I've noticed an huge drop in overall quality of service, and it seems they have deliberately made it more difficult to qualify.....so much for customer loyalty...

pinniped

In an ideal world, I would say that the ability to trust a corporation is important to building a long and valued business relationship. However, in the real world, I realize the only thing that matters at all is this quarter's share price, as that is a driven of the CEO's bonus this year, and that CEO is statistically likely to be gone in two years.

Thus, I expect that most publicly-traded firms will seek to cut costs and attempt to maximize the value extracted from me in the very short term, even at the expense of long-term health of the business.

In general, the airlines have defined their relationship with their passengers as adversarial. They do it with sneaky fees that aren't really pinned to delivery of a good or service, intentionally-poor customer service at every touchpoint imaginable, 20th-century websites, and an unending culture that their "give-a-f..." is broken today. They hate us. We hate them. So the best we can do is play the game as best we can and hope most other passengers don't play it well as we do.

I used to think that hotels were different. Until probably 5-6 years ago, I felt like they were still more driven by hospitality and generally treating their customers well. I think pockets of that still exist, especially at well-managed properties within each of the brands. Front-line people at a good Marriott, for example, are still quite customer-focused. But the loyalty programs are beginning to follow the airlines in terms of devaluations and continually taking things away from guests.

I've mainly thought of the rental car agencies as simply unorganized and inept. No grand conspiracy there...just a lot of franchises that hire a lot of minimum-wage people who don't follow the systems well. It's hard to get too angry at a high-school kid who was never trained on the nuances of the elite tiers within Hertz #1 Club Gold. Just find me a car, any car, and I'll go on my way.