Attorneys and professors don't have the minds to work FF programs?? :eek: Methinks someone has random thoughts ...

GUWonder, im talking more generally about declining standards of a number of things, and philosophies that began long ago (as you mention re history)

im not saying that none of the things that exist today existed in the past, (in other words i am not saying that everything is new) as that would be an overgeneralization / oversimplification / reductionist argument

but i dont want to get into a big discussion trying to explain what im referencing, so if i remain completely incomprehensible i apologize

I disagree with this. Some may care more about upgrades & status,
while others care more about miles.

I look at it as the status is the basic entry requirement to play. Otherwise, the travel itself is so torturous that I frankly don't want to take the trip to begin with.

But after that, in 2014, I value the miles and earning the award seats to begin with as the bigger prize.

Perhaps it's because I fly a lot of routes where upgrades have become scarce. They're so rare to me that I don't factor them in a whole lot. If I want a J seat, I have to have the flexibility to find and redeem a J award. I know the airline isn't giving it to me.

I agree completely.

I certainly don't come across a disproportionately large number of IT and finance professionals on FT compared to the rest of my life -- and I certainly don't come across way more business entrepreneurs on FT than elsewhere. If anything, I would say this board has a very wide cross-section of game players who defy baseless stereotypes. If anything, the honey-trapped may be more likely to fit the stereotypes and be worse at playing this game. :eek:

Besides, if we were going to rely on baseless stereotypes, I'd pick professors and lawyers as groups who would play this game well. Doctors might not come immediately to mind...I think of them as simply buying the F seats and not worrying about miles too much...but that's another stereotype.

I agree it's a good cross-section here. Perhaps a slight bias towards IT since we probably get a lot of people who enter this game through a consulting gig. At least, I've met a few of those at the few FT DO's and (long ago) at the Freddies.

i also strongly agree. although i dont read all of FT.

although there might be some limited differentiation between certain threads and or certain forums. mainly threads, and probably very few threads that are at all narrow.

"True, you don’t pay an early-termination fee when you abandon your longtime airline to take a more convenient and cheaper flight with Spirit Airlines Inc."

Have any of these authors ever flown Spirit? I am assuming not, it may be cheaper but you get what you pay for....

on most of the routes I fly the prices are fairly similar with the exception of a few low-cost airlines that I tend to avoid due to service, schedule or because the airport is two hours away from the city (hello, spring airlines and your tokyo ibaraki route). knowing this I find it tough to agree with a "honey trap" analogy. I am not paying more, I am merely using it as an additional factor for using one airline over another as long as they have the connections and prices that are comparable. $30 difference? fine. I do not stick to star alliance when the price is seriously out of whack, my *G be damned. a "honey trap" on the other hand seeks to extract more out of me, thereby causing me a financial harm.

This. Economists aren't talking about Flyertalkers. Flyertalkers are the exception not the rule. We spend time making sure that we maximize the benefits available to us. The average flyer who mightbe attracted to an airline because of miles, will never earn enough miles to spend them or is trying to use them at the same time everyone else wants to use them and is blacked out. At best, they are earning rewards but their spend is such that they would have done better had they simply selected low-price options throughout. These flyers are not earning enough on their preferred airline to get significant status and thereby are not accruing those benefits.

The article specifically refers to general consumers - Flyertalkers are not general consumers, whether or not they are business travelers. I do not take Pretzelsandpeanuts' comment with a grain of salt (pun intended) but for many travelers, Spirit actually does meet their needs. Rock-bottom price with rock-bottom service. For many others, Spirit is just another "honey trap", luring consumers with a rock-bottom price, but then tacking on enough fees to make the cost comparable to other airlines. Ryanair is the master at this.

Indeed.

For that matter, back when my time had a closer-to-negligible value and I could most readily pick routings to maximize miles, I could pretty much call it this way -- by keeping AA Platinum (with 100% RDM bonus) I would get a free transcon flight pretty much every third or 4th time (5700 flight miles, or 11400 RDM, 25k for the award) and a free transpac every third or 4th time (15-22k flight miles depending on the routing, or 30-44k RDM, typically 70k miles for the award.)

It made it very easy to put a flat 30% price difference on longer-haul tickets that I was willing to pay on AA or mile-earning OW tickets. The better treatment was secondary (and for back then when I was flying TPAC a lot, the big competition was generally a non-mile-earning lower fare bucket on CX, where I'd get the better treatment but not the miles.)

As coach has gotten more unpleasant, and things like baggage fees came in (and my time got a bit harder to call its value negligible) the relative value of the other elite-status benefits has gone up.

Is Spirit really cheaper? When I add back the extras, it's usually comes out more expensive. I avoid them.

This really gets back to my point about Spirit as well. The low prices of the basic ticket are just a different "honey trap", which mislead people into thinking they are getting the better deal, but when the extras get added in, they aren't.