Hidden status tiers
 

I was thumbing through a book on airline marketing the other day (Stephen Shaw, Airline Marketing and Management) and the author mentions that some air carriers have additional, "hidden" status tiers that are only distributed with approval of airline executive management. Does anybody here have any knowledge of what these are, and what they could possibly provide?

I can only speculate on amusing benefits such as being properly addressed by the sycophantic air carrier: "Ahhh, LEOPOLD, welcome back your highness."

- Just curious

United has UGS (United Global Services) for people who frequently purchase full-fare premium seats. It typically trumps any of the Mileage Plus status tiers.

There was a Wall Street Journal article on these a few years back. The bottom line: every airline has them, and if you have to ask, you're not eligible.

There can also be unofficial differentiation among people who are nominally in the same official tier. AA reportedly looks at your points/miles ratio (for non-AA types, you get more points per mile on higher paid fares, so this is an imperfect measure of revenue) in deciding whether to open up award seats in borderline situations and other such decisions for EXPs.

British Airways has a "Premier" tier above its Gold tier. Searching the BA board for "Premier" should bring up a lot of threads related to it.

Other airlines have been known to use special tags/designators such as "VIP" or "CIP" (commercially important person). These tags are part of your record and used for people who do not fly an enormous amount of miles but are people the airline is interested in keeping happy i.e. celebrities,corporate big wigs..etc.