I am totally astonished about how someone can earn 8000+ flight miles for a $150 fare!!! With all the bonus, the same fare also generates 20000 miles to be used in the future.

Can't the airlines do the math? Someone with status and time can play this game 5 times and earn himself/herself a FC ticket to Europe for just $750. In the process, that person gets free upgrades within N.America.

My solution for the airlines is to only award "direct" flight miles to any ticket. That way, it will discourage the mileage runners and free up higher class seats. At the same time, the airlines should try to sell biz/1st class tickets at more reasonable price. Lastly, don't award any miles for ridiculously low sale fares.

What did I just type? Looks like I am ready to take fireballs.

Fireball #1: They can give these out because in essance they are free, they just don't make the seats available at the lower award levels (use CO's for example) so you have to use 2X the award to get an any time award. Hence, the bonus' do the same thing, you get twice the miles for your trip but it takes twice as much to use them. In the end its the same thing except the consumer thinks he/she is getting a great deal, go to any CO thread when the bonus' were going wild, everyone was so happy, yet we can't use any of those miles or if we do its at very high exchange rates.

You want to discourage mileage runners and free up higher fare seats!!!!

Why do you think these fares are at $150 in the first place, they can't sell these at higher fares if they could they would. As far as upgrades, there is a reason they don't clear until X days out, the airlines know the odds of selling a full rev F or J ticket. And it isn't good chance (of selling the F/J fare) by the time your u/g clears.

Mileage runners fill seats that other wise would go empty on a plane that is going on its route regardless. The airline gets something for that fare that they otherwise could never recoup.

Finally, where can I get a $150 ticket and get 8000 base miles and 20000 total miles..

I'll book those right now if you can show me

Did you write this letter also?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007342.html

If they were not offering the bonus miles, there is a good chance that seat would have gone empty, and they wouldn't have the $750. Hilton is giving you 50,000 bonus points (actually more if you book online, etc) for what you could get as little as 2,400 points for.

Upgrades don't cost the airlines much, they certainly are not turning away people who want to pay for Business and first to give to upgrades. Same thing with free first class seats, they aren't turning away a paying customer to give up their seat.

Why not take it to the other extreme? Get rid of the consolidator, tour, etc fares? They cost way too little money. Don't sell any seats on hotwire or priceline, they certainly don't generate enough money. Loyalty, as any airline entering bankruptcy will show, is something the airlines need very badly right now.

Well, I was able to book SFO-BNA rt + tax for less than $100 on CO/NW about a month ago, go figure. When I pull that fare out, I had my mouth wide open for 5 seconds... (BTW, I didn't bite the offer since I don't have the time...)

If the fare will be gone unsold since the biz/1st fare is so high, why don't the airlines sell them at, say, $600 fare coast-to-coast with 21 day advance purchase? I'll buy that any day if my other option is to fly coach for $400.

You said mileage runners help to fill up planes - TRUE! But without the mileage runners, the airlines should be able to fly smaller airplanes or reduce schedule...

[This message has been edited by FT wannabe (edited 08-21-2002).]

So you're refering to CNTU bonus? I think Hilton has no choices but to offer that to generate cash. But airlines should have more flexibility on their biz plan.

Think about the example I gave in the previous messages. I'll pay 1.5x fare on my leisure travel any day, but not 4x.

To answer your other point, I think airlines are in the process of trying to get rid of travel agents. It will take some time, but it is happening.

That sounds like some middle school students wrote that letter...

My rule-of-thumb( ) is...
If the fare is reasonable, no reason to switch to another airline without FF program. On the other side of the token, with all the sale fare, there're no reason why I should fly an airline without FF program.

Incredibly naive.

Please elaborate.

Mileage runners are such a small % of the flying population that if all mileage runners bailed at once, it would have such an immaterial impact on any one airline. The abscense of mileage runners are not going to allow the airline to downsize a plane. there are just not enough of them to affect the size of aircraft on a route.

Also, do you think that the abscense of a few low fare MR's on a trans con (say EWR-LAX) on a 738 are going affect what plane is on that route, what are they going to put an RJ on the route?

Agree. But that small number of people only fly bogus mileage runs at ridiculous low price like the one I point out initially - getting 1st class seat to Europe at $750 plus occupying the first class seats domestically all the time.

It doesn't take an expert to figure out the math that no airlines can profit from those mileage runners. So why not eliminating them by changing the mileage accural rule slightly by awarding only "direct flight" mileages on regularly price flight. And no mileage accural for cheap flight.

On the other hand, airlines should take a closer look at the yield management software. Because whatever it is doing, it is not filling up the seats at profitable scale. Maybe some assumption they put into the software are not valid anymore...

Flame this guy all you want, but his central premise is right.

I don't agree with most of his suggestions, but to not think that the majors will -- and that Right Soon (to quote a little Shawshank) -- be more directly tying FF miles and status to revenue generated, not simply miles flown ... that, my friends, is the height of naivete.

Yes, the Q/T fares on CO, the L/U's on DL ... these fares will not earn miles of any kind, status or otherwise, in the very near future. Meanwhile, you might get 150% status miles for full Y, and 200% for full C or F. Alternatively, majors might award a base mileage plus a certain number of miles for each dollar spent.

TW was far ahead of its time in its attempt to tie revenue to miles earned. Their program will resurface in any number of incarnations within the next 36 months.

Anyone want to bet I'm wrong?

Mook

Bingo.

Yield management was pioneered in days when airlines could reasonably expect a mid-to-high single-digit percentage increase, year over year, in air miles flown.

Further, the proportions of leisure vs. business travelers, the percentage increase in average fare paid, the average distance per flight ... these numbers all stayed remarkably constant through the Reagan / Bush Sr. / Clinton boom years.

Ah, but with a recession comes a different set of rules, and on 9/11, the rulebook went right out the window.

The 20 years of data airlines have powering their yield management software is ... well, maybe worthless is too strong a term, but certainly no longer dependable.

But who's going to blink first, scrap that data, and start over with a radically rehauled fare and FF structure? Or will all 6 majors go lemming-like over that cliff instead?

Mook

Yes, such an idea as tieing mileage to fares may surface in the near future, and unless it surfaces at ALL the airlines, whichever one pulls this stunt on us will simply lose all loyalty business.......

"So Long " is the tune from me: I cannot and will not give my business to an airline that makes it so difficult to earn free trips. My time on the road is too valuable to me: I suffer the indignities of today's airport when I could drive, and I set up meetings in faraway places when I could just set up the teleconference equipment or do it by phone----- all of this will be my response if I don't get what the originator here seems to want to describe as improper.

I don't see it that way. I see it as a contract (unenforceable, yes, but a moral contract nonetheless) between me and ____ airline. I keep flying. They provide me with a certain amount of thanks. I keep flying.

When they pull the plug, SO DO I.

This benefit is just too valuable for myself, my staff, and everybody's motivation. If it's not there, expect my two dozen associates to be driving to any close meetings, and zipping the wallet for anything not crucial that's a planeride away. Oh, and they can FORGET loyalty. If they ever wanted to undo that and set us up as price hawks, fueling the "race to the bottom" (which the established majors would lose, and Southwest et. al. would win), just undo the frequent flyer programs........ Be forewarned; I speak not for just myself.

Have a LOVELY day.

To elaborate on Mook's post, I'll along NYTimes' analysis that one of the unexpected problems yield management ran into was the growth of the Internet, which allowed businesses to see once and for all just how much they were getting gouged... nothing like the free flow of information to upset well made plans...