Comped Elites for Coporate Flyers
 

I was reading the United threads this morning, and someone referred to UA's policy of conferring Premier Executive status on frequent flyers whose companies choose United as their airline of choice.

Can anyone comment on how widespread the practice is, both on UA and on other airlines as well?

The reason I ask is that I have had a very difficult time getting upgraded out of SFO on many of the routes I fly and it made me wonder whether part of the reason is that perhaps I am competing against not only frequent flyers but also large numbers of "giveaway" PE's.

(For those of you who may have already responded to the original post, which was worded differently than the edited version above, please see my correction and an apology below.)

[This message has been edited by dgolds (edited 02-17-2000).]

Unless you are a 1K, you also compete with 1Ks who know how to use the system to their advantage to get more than their share of upgrade certs, according to a 1K poster on another United thread.

I saw a rumor that every AA employees are given PE this year. Is it true?

Yes, dgolds, UA is happy to give competitive comps to frequent flyers switching from another airline. They will make you Premier or PE, corresponding to your current level with the competition.

Quietlion is quite correct. I'd like to add that this competitive comp is usually given for the partial year that it is given, and the following full year only. After that they expect you to qualify like everyone else.

Most all of the airlines do this.

United (and I'm sure most other major airlines) also comp Premier and Premier Executive levels to top flyers for some of their biggest corporate customers. As above, usually for a trial period.

United also usually comps PE status for the one year after an existing PE drops below the required requalification mileage.

Finally, United offers Lifetime Premier Executive status to their deadbeat Million Mile Flyers. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

letiole makes a good point that you (and even other 1Ks) are competing with 1Ks. I'd like to add that you are also competing with Sales Department Upgrades, Customer Service Upgrades, Positive Space Employees and Retirees, VIPs, C or F International Connecting Passengers and the general Mileage Plus Member that is using miles to confirm an upgrade in advance. And let's not leave out that most dreaded enemy of all frequent flyers...the full fare Business or First Class passenger! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

And of course, the aircraft you travel on and the markets you fly also have a major bearing on upgrade success.

Which is probably why some consider United's upgrade policy rather frugal. United probably gives out only enought upgrades that they figure you have a chance of redeeming! They probably figure that you'll be a happier member if you've been able to use up the certs that you have been given, rather than be a mad member who is stuck with expiring certs that they weren't able to use! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

As bad as I make it sound, as you can read in other threads, PEs have a pretty good success rate overall. And I think things are going to improve for Premiers and Premier Executives substantially in the future because of:

United's Economy Plus: I think fewer pax will be using miles to upgrade if they find this new product to their liking.

Electronic Complimentary Upgrades: Rumored to be coming this year and similar to Delta's, this will replace paper certificates and have greater accountability for Agents. This should effectively close most of the loopholes that letiole mentions above. Some 1ks may find their upgrade opportunites actually declining because of this, but it should be good news for most Ps and PEs.

As always (unless you're on the same flight as me)...Good Luck!

Many years ago I was working in a company where every employee was eligible for a silver elite membership in CO (their mid tier level at that time with a 100% mileage bonus). I think that most big corporations would be able to get some of their employees comped.

As mentioned, if you are elite with an airline, you have a good chance to get an elite comp with another airline.

I do not know how widespread this is and how it affect non-comped elites. But keep in mind that this is usually a one time thing (there are exceptions as mentioned in the United post). Also if the person gets a comp but does not fly much, s/he is not getting much benefits or hurting others much. Also its much easier to get comped the lowest tier and almost impossible to get comped the highest tier (on United at least, but I think also for other airlines).

I do not think that Economy plus will have much effect in reducing demand for upgrades. For me, legroom is much less important than say having a middle empty seat. Matt/koko had some really good comments about this.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 02-17-2000).]

I was wondering why some of the replies to this thread offered oblique answers to my original question, or answered a question I hadn't asked.

Then I reread my post and realized I hadn't asked what I meant to ask. (Doh!)

Here's what I originally intended to ask:

I was reading the United threads this morning, and someone referred to UA's policy of conferring Premier Executive status on frequent flyers whose companies choose United as their airline of choice.

I know United comps elite status to individual passengers; other airlines do it as well. I can't imagine that this practice would create huge numbers of PE's. What I was wondering about is what PG addressed, namely an airline comping status to many employees of a company that chooses the airline as their "official" carrier.

Sorry for the confusion, and my apologies to those who took the time to reply to the original post.

United is our corporate airline. As part of the deal our employees get comped to Premier. If you're already Premier, you get comped to PE. I haven't tried this perk to verify since I only found out about it after I made PE last year.

BTW, dgolds I was talking about a big company. But I am not aware of anyone among the people I knew there who took advantage of it (apart from me).

Most programs that I am aware of explicitly disallow an airline's employees from their FF program, using lounges, etc. Given that they can often travel free, or almost free, I don't imagine that they would want to displace paying customers.

My company (1,000+ employees, most of them in the NY & SF areas) has a deal with AA. Everyone at a certain level (about 200-250 people currently) gets space-available upgrades -- we're told by the corp. travel agent that we rank in priority equal to their lowest-level elites. Of course, a few people at the highest level are treated like mid-level elites. We don't, however, get a break on fares.

Last month, when there was a managers' meeting in SF (75 people flying from NY, 15 from DC, 20 from LA), the NY-SF travel (as picked by the flyers, not the company) was split 1/3 each among AA, CO & UA.

Since we don't have offices in Chicago, Denver or Miami, I'm guessing that we don't have a large # of Mileage Plus elites. To me, that means a lot of people chose coach (or their own MP upgrades) on UA over the chance of an upgrade on AA for the old-fashioned reasons: convenience, service or miles. Personally, I'd rather fly AA than US or TW, but that's about it.

Sorry for the confusion in my post. I meant Arthur Anderson (AA) people are given PE by United automatically.

Ok.. to share this... I AM TOO DARN CONFUSED http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I know AA can stand for Arthur Andersen, but putting it in this forum, you confused us with thinking American Airlines http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The airlines will do whatever it takes to increase revenue and market share....

I always think that HP stands for Hewlett-Packard http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Well... my dad's an AA Pilot (that's your only hint about the AA abbreviation) and my parents have put college educations and cars on their Citibank (that's your second hint) card. There's a problem with the "free or almost free" travel... it's space available. My past two trips to florida have involved 3 nights in DFW. When I went to France this summer, I went on AAdvantage miles.

My mom has had an Admirals Club membership for about 8 years. I believe my dad would be ineligible. Employees in uniform are never allowed in. I don't know what the using lounges when non-revving policy is, because we've always been discrete and checked in elsewhere.

I don't need a lounge membership. I look young enough that I can say "my dad's in there" and get in. I only say that phrase... don't associate "dad" with my dad, the pilot.

- Derek

------------------
50 cents an hour not a big Advantage?
Be paid $20-$120 an hour with BePaid.
http://www.bepaid.com/users.rhtml?REFID=10063853

Since I work for Arthur Andersen, I can tell you that we are not comped to PE -- at least, that fact has not been communicated to us.

As an American Airlines flyer, I do get some perks with our Andersen corporate contract (basically corporate discounts), but we are not comped any FF levels on AA or UA.

--JIm

The company I work for has 4 preferred airlines, Continental, Delta, Cathay Pacific, and United.


None of them comp us elite status.

Continental does however offer us complimentary upgrades on certain flights, but I've never seen the exact policy spelled out.

On the other hand, Starwood comped us to "Corporate Preferred." This level grants lounge access, but without the points bonus of the standard premier levels.

I work for a large (150K employees +) company whose corporate (AX) travel department strongly encourages us to fly the friendly skies. On a recent JFK-HKG booking I was told that that my name, flight etc. would show up on an exception report due to the fact that I asked that a CX ticket be issued saving my company approximately $2300.00. Evidently some bonehead within our CFO and/or purchasing organization made a revenue commitment to UAL but did not negotiation guaranteed lowest cost tickets. I routinely receive premium memberships from a number of hotel/car rental companies but have never received an offer of complimentary PE status from UAL. Incidentally, I am EP with AA and of course fly CX due to oneworld and all of those nice bonus miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I've been comped to elite on TWA, CO, US Air and Delta. But it hasn't worked. I rarely flew those airlines before and being Elite hasn't going changed my mind.

So those of you who do use those airlines needn't worry about all those who've been comped.

transborder I must come to the defense of "some bonehead within our CFO and/or purchasing organization". As a finance guy who supports the purchasing organization of a large (100k employees) company, I find a common mistake in perception of the people with regard to airline tickets. What you see is not always what you get in this world. We have a deal negotiated with our preferred airline that if we but full fare tickets and fulfull our commitment to seats filled on various routes we will get a sizeable rebate back from the airline. Last year the rebate was in the millions of dollars. People would wonder why they had to book on the preferred carrier when they perceived the cost to be cheaper elsewhere when in reality after the rebate was factored in the preferred carrier was much cheaper. The problem was the travel department continues to charge the travelers the full cost of the tickets and keeps the rebate in their cost center.

Sorry for being off topic but I cannot stand by and watch the good name of Finance people be slandered!

My husband works for a LARGE company - Fortune 500. He was comped PE once but through the travel dept, not automatically as an employee. He had a long run as a PE, was just shy of 50K, and had also been a 1K. He works in marketing with some guys that have had PE comped to them by UAL without begging and whining. UAL is the airline of choice at his company. He knows about the rebates to the travel dept but his dept is charged the rate on the ticket. Kind of a bum internal deal.

PSU Lion...My reply was not meant to really offend anyone who supports our company's purchasing decisions. I just see these types of decisions in many different aspects of our company. As to your point regarding the rebates, that never appears as a credit to my annual travel expenditures which necessitates me continuing to "haggle" and make choices other then the friendly skies. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

In case when you have to charge your client for the travel expenses. Are these kick back legal? Ethical?

In most of these cases the travel department pocket the profit and leave the client staffs to justify the high full fare tickets.

PSU Lion:

My previous corpopration, as well as my current one (for what it's worth) have similar deals with the airlines, for the same costing reasons as yours has. It adds up to a significant savings to the company over the year.

We are given reasonable latitude when booking our tickets, but if at all possible, the preferred airlines are...uh, well...preferred.

[This message has been edited by hnechets (edited 02-23-2000).]

Just after I stopped work ('93), my company (a consulting firm with ~3,000 employees) selected United as its preferred airline. As part of this selection, United comped all AVP's to Premier and all VP's to Premier Exec (each level represents roughly 10% of employees)

Actually, I think this was very smart on both my company's and United's part. We have consultants all over the country, each with their own preferred airline; at least nobody could claim they'd lose their bonuses or elite status in their old airline. And while some consultants don't fly very much, United didn't give away very much for them.

I don't know if this was a one-time thing or if it's been repeated as UA's preferred status has continued these several years.

If you hold the purse strings of the corp travel budget you can be comped. If you want to forgo some of the 'rebate' you can arrange for the comping of employees.

Simple as that.

Nick




[This message has been edited by Merry (edited 02-27-2000).]

The company I work for has had a corporate contract with United for years. I have never been comped any status and have had to earn 1K status the hard way every year (UA shuttle segments). Heck, even in years when I was a few segments short of 1K, United moved me down to Premier Exec.