Pre-FF Customer Recognition Awards
 

I'm trying to find information on what specific (any) airlines did to award frequent flying customers before mileage programs were put into place... e.g. Delta's Flying Colonel program, others. Please post response here or e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks!

United used to have a really funny "award." They sent you a funky plastic plaque (I mean really seedy molded plastic that was supposed to look like wood). It had a cheap metal insert saying you were a valued flyer or something. Then every time you went to a city you hadn't been to since they started keeping track, they sent you a little peel-off strip with the city name on it for you to add to the plaque. When you filled up your plaque they sent you another one.

I always felt this was the funniest and crummiest perk I ever got from an airline. I put the plaque up in my office for a while as a joke, but had to take it down because people started to think I was actually serious about it.

This must have been maybe late 70's or something.

On the more serious side, some of us remember when the airline clubs were free, but membership was based on flying 100,000 miles. I was in the United club for a number of years before they started charging at all. Initially, as I recall, they began charging as a result of a class action lawsuit brought by non-frequent flyers alleging that they were being screwed out of the airlines' services simply because they didn't fly much. The airlines theoretically "lost" that one, but in the long run they won, because their solution was to start charging for memberships. Glad I bought mine when life membership was less than $300 and included a free spouse card!

I was going to bring up the airline clubs, too. My brother was a member of the United RCC back in the 60s and 70s when it was free and just took a whole bunch of flying to be a member. I remember him mentioning once when his mother-in-law was visiting his family in Iowa he bought a round-trip DSM-ORD ticket to make sure she got on her connecting flight to PHL (she had a bit of an alcohol problem), and spent the time between flights in ORD at the RCC.

You do know that this is a 15-year-old thread, don't you? ;)

This makes me feel like Rodney Dangerfield.

That's pretty funny, since the thread showed up on the homepage tonight as though it was current (under the "Today at xx:xx" heading). Honest, I really don't go deep into the archives to find topics to comment on.

That was the "Executive Air Travel Program." It was discontinued in the early 80s.

I think I got strips (gold, silver and bronze, IIRC) for one or more trips to about ten cities.