This is an excellent point, and is one of the reasons I don't focus a lot of my "bonus" activity away from my preferred carrier (which happens to be AA, partially because of the lifetime status rules).

If I accumulate miles on an airline I have no status on, I have to accumulate a *lot* of them to get a premium cabin award, or take a trip where I am the absolute least-important customer on the airplane (a non-status, non-rev passenger). In that case, I will stand in long lines, likely get a bad coach seat, and will be the *last* person to get accommodated if the flight is canceled or delayed. With some airlines, getting prompt phone service as a non-elite is next to impossible: especially in bad weather situations.

Basically, it's a risk I don't want to take. And because any future award travel I do will probably include my wife, I have to know I can get to about 100,000 miles on that secondary airline before I will accumulate there. (I did do this with Delta because the Skymiles card had 60,000+ miles in bonuses tied to it in late 2000.)

A good counter argument to my line of thinking is that you can get the low-elite level comped fairly easily on most airlines, thus ensuring your coach award travel will be bearable. I have thought about that, but who knows if the airlines will still be throwing that around 2 years down the road when I want to fly. I'd rather keep pumping my miles into AA and moving towards those lifetime levels.

I can see how United might favor a flyer like PremEx over someone who is a non-elite member who accumulated the same number of miles from other sources. In reality though, there are very few pudding guy situations where people have accumulated hundreds of thousands or millions of miles without ever taking a flight. Most of us fly, stay at hotels, rent cars, use credit cards, telephone partners, etc.

I don�t doubt that PremEx and others may have received preferential treatment by reminding agents that their account contains �pure� or direct miles. On first blush, this seems powerful. What I am saying and PremEx seems to agree with me, is that this isn�t really logical. It is mostly perception on the part of the agent.

Think of it this way. When PremEx tells a United agent that he is a loyal United customer and that all of his Mileage Plus miles have come from flying, what he is really saying is that he has flown a lot on United but at the same time has sent thousands of dollars in partner revenues to Delta instead of United. How is this more loyal to United than someone who has flown just as much but has also put his partner dollars in United�s pocket?

But, IMHO, a res agent might be more likely to go out of their way to help (spend a few more seconds looking up an alternate routing, putting a request through to yield management, etc.) if they feel like they're dealing with someone who is loyal to their company. Of course, there is no guarantee of this.

It's a human element, rather than a procedural one.

I suspect perhaps the original point has some validity with United for the somewhat illogical reasons stated. In the case of American (and by extension One-World), I doubt if the same reasoning applies. My wife and I each have a lot of AA miles with the majority earned without flying and each have lifetime platinum status. During the past five years we've never failed to obtain a "saver" award when we wanted. The Aadvantage staff is allways most helpful, professional and goes out of their way to accomodate our requests. Never has the source of our miles been even hinted at.

transpac questions: Well, that's not how it works exactly. The Reservations agent is not the one who shakes something out of the tree. Usually after your pitch, they forward your request off to Revenue Management. The key is to get them to give as the "reason(s)" to go the extra mile, as much ammo as they can. And that ammo can be the "Take a look at my account" thing.

Revenue Management does have the power and authority to override inventory restrictions under special circumstances. I just try to give them a special circumstance.

BTW, others have found this successful for them. In fact, as I mentioned, I'm not the first to use this stratagy. But as a current example, AuH2o just was denied an exception and finally allowed one when he dropped this "see all those are flight miles" shoe. (See his post in United)

Keep in mind this guarantees you nothing. It's more an subtle art form how you use it than something you can demand, count on, or expect them to react to in any way. I've had agents in effect say "so what." But I just call and eventually get an agent who says, "Yes. You've got a point there. Let me see what I can do."

But I can say it's definately been the deciding and/or contributing factor many a time for me and others.

Thank you, Premex

I think that this is faulty logic, but that opinion is coming from somebody who earns 99% of his miles through affinity programs rather than flight miles. Seems to me that the airlines must be making a significant profit on affinity/partner program miles, as those earning opportunities continue to grow. If that is the case, then why can't I direct all of my miles, affinity or otherwise, to my airline od choice and then employ the "PremEx method" - - "Hey, cut me some slack here, I'm a loyal customer, just look at all of these miles that I've earned through X, Y and Z. I give all of my business to your airline or your partners."

[This message has been edited by cactuspete (edited 11-14-2002).]

I think that flyers like PremEx and auh2o rightly enjoy perks that are not normally available to the run-of-the-mill 1K flyer. To somehow infer that these can be naturally extended to the "unwashed masses" (one of which am I) strains credibility.

I used to routinely ask the Premier Customer Relations for help "shaking something out of the tree" with revenue/inventory/whatever management, and they responded by clearing every upgrade request. I haven't used this approach in the last 12 months as I only book/ticket flights where I can confirm an upgrade.

I think people are comparing apples and oranges here.

If two people have 300,000 miles each in their accounts, and one can say "these are all from flying with you" and the other can't, perhaps the first can get better treatment.

However, that's not the usual situation.

I'm going to fly about 102,000 miles on AA and its partners this year. I'll get about 230K miles from flying (2x on everything plus a few more bonuses) and another 120K or so from other stuff, total around 350. Will I, or should I, get worse treatment than someone who earned the same 230K from flying and no miles from credit cards and such? I think not.

After all, it's not as if I will fly more to make up what I could have earned from credit cards and thereby reach the same total. My flying is what it is. Anyone who flies enough to earn 350K AA miles in a year from flying alone ought to get better treatment than I do - but why would it hurt that person to have another 100K or so from hotel stays, phone bills, and restaurants?

This is, of course, only logic. When one is talking to a human being, whether an airline reservation agent or anyone else, logic isn't always the determining factor. If saying (in effect) "I deserve special treatment, because I never use any of those partners you keep asking me to use" works, go for it.

transpac, I'm nobody extra special at United. I'm not listed as VIP. There is nothing special tagged in my profiles saying "break the rules for this guy." I am a 1K Million Mile Flyer, but what I'm saying is that when even that doesn't cut it alone, this added into the mix often does tip the scale just that much more to my side.

It wouldn't surprise me if someone with no status at all, but a big balance from flying in their account, might not pull this off. I know for a fact that it's helped low status folks that have done it.

cactuspete...one thing you have to keep in mind is that there is UAL Corp, and United Loyalty Programs, Inc. and Mileage Plus, Inc.

And then there is United Airlines.

And United Airlines Reservations and United Airlines Revenue Management, may (and in my experience, does) look at things quite differently, from their own prioritized revenue viewpoint.

Heck, I know some people at United the Airline that think Mileage Plus is often more trouble than it's worth, and don't like not having direct control over the baby.

Perceptions. Divisional differences and divisional priorities. Not always logical to the whole.

In fact, I believe there was an article in a past InsideFlyer that speculated on just this subject...that airlines might subconsciously or even consciously "value" true flyers miles more than affinity "flyer's" miles someday.

[This message has been edited by PremEx (edited 11-14-2002).]

How does one obtain a big balance from flying and not have any status?

Easy. You used to fly a lot and now you don't very often.

I got a friend that has over a 500,000 miles and he only fly's about 18K a year now.

Lotta miles from flying still, but no status any longer.

Hmmm...

I've never had any problems redeeming bonus affinity miles for tickets or rooms.

I agree its harder and unlikely to get upgraded because of my method of earning miles, but on all my trips i've always been able to get seats.