Affinity Miles And Obtaining Awards
 

...and a very belated "Thank You" to someone out there.

Years ago (probably 1998) here on FlyerTalk, someone posted on how they purposefully didn't have any affinity bonus miles (hotel, phone company, credit card, etc.) post to their primary airline's frequent flyer program, as it seemed to improve their chances for obtaining lower mileage requirement, capacity controlled Saver awards, when they were not generally available.

I took that person's advice, have never regretted it, and to this day consider it the most valuable piece of advice I ever got here.

All that my Mileage Plus (United) account contains is actual flight miles and flight related bonues. All my affinity miles go to an airline frequent flyer program that I don't fly that often anymore (Delta most of the time).

Then, as that person experienced, when Saver awards could not be obtained normally due to capacity control, and all other options didn't pan out, the request for exception, when backed up with, "Look at my account. Every one of those miles comes from direct business with you folks. No dinning or MCI or credit card miles. All yours"...was acknowledged. And within a few minutes on hold or a call back later, an exception was made and Saver awards were almost always "found."

I know that with the current tide of "no waivers, no favors" out there, that this strategy may have less success in the future. But as of just the other day, it still carries a great deal of weight.

I tried for about an hour to find by searching the archives who this person was that gave this advice, as I have long forgotten. But if you are reading this right now...many, many Thanks for the great tip. I've never hit an immovable capacity control brick wall with it, and have never had to use a Standard award because of it. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

BTW, it has always been quite humorous to call Mileage Plus and ask that they remove some piddly affinity bonus miles that snuck into my account by some old profile or oversight. When they ask me why, I tell them. And they usually respond, "Nice strategy."

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I have long advocated this strategy (for relatively high mileage collectors), but for different reasons. In my case the reason is being able to find availability from one of several airlines.

Also - AA gives lifetime elite for 1M miles collected (from all sources) so it is worthwhile to designate AA as your secondary airline if you can hit the 1M target.

As an exception - I'll take affinity miles on my primary airline if there are associated bonuses.

BTW - I've always redeemed saver awards too.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 11-13-2002).]

Another bonus to putting tons of miles into an airline you don't often fly is that if you redeem them for premium class travel you don't have to worry about having any status with the airline to get "good" service (premium check-in, lounge access, etc.).

Of course, you could do the same by buying premium class tickets on other airlines, but that goes against the point.

Maybe I am dense, but I don’t understand why an airline would favor this. Lets look at two frequent flyers:

Frequent Flyer 001 – has 200,000 miles in his account, all from flights and flight bonuses

Frequent Flyer 002 – has 250,000 miles in his account, 200,000 from flights and flight bonuses, and 50,000 from partner/affinity miles.

Why would an airline favor 001 over 002? Don’t the airlines sell the partner/affinity miles to hotels, phone companies, credit card companies, etc? If so, it should be a profit source for the airline, not a reason to downgrade that frequent flyer.

As Denzel Washington said in the movie Philadelphia, would someone please explain this to me like I am a four year old.

You are not dense and it's a good question that I knew would be coming.

Yes you are correct. The airlines do sell miles.

But it's just the same as how one airline gives extra benefits for miles flown on them and not the same benefits for those flown on alliance partners. They consider direct business as non-diluted and more valuable.

Why?

In my experience, it's the perception all your miles come from direct business with United, the airline. Not from sold miles through United Loyalty Programs Inc. to MCI and then to Mileage Plus.

So when a reservationist looks at my account and sees, say a million miles, or looks at my lifetime totals as sees little or no miles from "other" sources, and they can see that all or the majority of it is from flying and not buying pudding, it may (and in my and others experience, does) impress them enough to go the extra mile for you.

In other words, you get to say to them in effect, "All these miles have come from my ... in the can, and not from eating from a can. Don't you think you can poke your keyboard and shake something loose for this loyal United customer and air warrior?"

It's all about preceptions and exceptions. And helping them see things they way they want to see it (whether they know it or not). http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

And the more ammo you can have to use in your persuasion gun (this, your YTD miles, your current status, your lifetime status, your revenue), can go just that much more to your advantage.

And I know that it may not make logical sense to many. But when have the airlines always done things logically? I'm just saying how it works in the real world for me (and others).

[This message has been edited by PremEx (edited 11-13-2002).]

What do you mean by "lower mileage requirement, capacity controlled Saver awards, when they were not generally available"

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Ms.DtG

I mean when they aren't available on the flights you want. As in no Saver Award inventory available.

Standard Awards are ones that don't have capacity controls, but cost much more in mileage.

[This message has been edited by PremEx (edited 11-13-2002).]

I guess the trade off to having all your miles go into your primary account is that you would have more miles to use for anytime awards. My main airline is AA, and it's filled with non-flying miles - probably more than in flight miles. Of course, because AA allows for lifetime status, there is an incentive to have EVERYTHING I can go there. Once I reach lifetime Platinum I will think some of this differently.

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Ms.DtG

Yes, if United had the same policy regarding what type of miles qualify for Million Mile/Lifetime status that American has, my strategy may have been quite different.

But I may have considered switching gears over to the pure flight miles strategy once I had already hit the Million mark.

It's a cycle- it's my opinion that people don't have the same "reverence" for AA million milers that they do for the those with airlines where million milers have actually flown 1mm, so from a perception standpoint, AA million milers are (relatively) dime-a-dozen.

The lifetime elite benefits would be pretty cool no matter what, though. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Lifetime gold is a pretty small perk, but lifetime PLT at 2mm would be great- double miles for life!

I find it difficult to believe that a UA Reservation Agent can make the call to give away a Saver Award, where one does not exist, based solely on the fact that one does not have an partner miles in their mileage accounts? In effect this agent is "giving away" 50 ~ 100% more miles by giving away a Saver award vs. a Standard award.

I guess if a lot of people can verify this with multiple examples I might be a believer. Personally I have ~ 1.33% partner miles currently, (all from the UA Mileage Plus Visa card) and I'd guess that has been constant for four years. I have not had any problems getting the Saver award, or awards on a Star Alliance partner using UA miles, that I wanted. I have however been very flexible in my requirements for (Saver) award travel.

hmmmmm, this gets me thinkin'

WOULD THE AIRLINES ever BUY miles BACK from ME?...

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

I get the sense PremEx is mainly comparing Flyer 1: a 1P with United with 200,000 flight miles vs. Flyer 2: a non-status member with 200,000 miles, mostly acquired from other sources. I can see how Flyer 1 would get preferential treatment, both because of status and the fact that he/she has spent a great deal of time on UA flights.

In your scenario, I would think there would be no different in treatment. If your Flyer 1 and Flyer 2 held the same current status (which is obviously a big factor), I doubt UA would punish Flyer 2 for taking advantage of credit card, dining, and other bonus miles.

Seems like if United was adversely affected by those other mileage sources, they'd discontinue the programs. We know they aren't adversely affected though: they make a profit when you use the UA Visa or an iDine restaurant.

No.

But Hilton and MilePoint will.

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More Room Throughout Coach: the Website of Free Miles and Free Markets

My personal belief is that airlines should not be making exceptions. Or more precisely stated - exceptions should be built in the rules (for example - United 1Ks are exempt from blackout dates).

It may be a matter of perception, but I fail to see how one is more loyal if one only accumulates miles by flying. One could have 100% flight miles in their account, and still be taking flights on other airlines. And I would think that one is more loyal to a brand if they are availing of all the opportunities - flights, partners etc. since the airline makes money through partners.

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. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

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.