we all know that more than a few frequent flyers go for top tier status of another airline/alliance once they have obtained that status with their first choice carrier.

nothing wrong with that ( i have done it myself ) and there can be multiple reasons to do so .

however, if you browse topics on this board related to new ,higher tiers of ff programms to be introduced , you will always find a lot of interest and many people making plans how to qualify , even when it is just a rumor flying or a vage announcement of plans for something that may come in the future . (like the "black card" for lufthansa miles & more).

so can somewbody explain to me why the airlines , instead of going for travellers' business by offering them something they have to be REAL loyal for in order to obtain
it , go exactly the other way by lowering qualification terms or offering gold status comps to almost everybody , hence making it easy to get promoted without showing any such thing as loyalty or even without giving any business to the airlines at all .

no offence intended to nobody , but if i was the ceo of an airline , i would turn that around and would offer something that would take REAL loyalty to get but would be REALLY rewarding and well worth the effort.

Qantas and British Airways do not comp status. They are both profitable airlines - so you have an excellent point.

It is the same for Lufthansa. Very profitable without any comps

If I was the CEO of an airline, I would be polishing my resume.

maybe british airways nor lufthansa do comp, however still make it very easy on customers not from their own country to obtain top tier ( it only takes 600 points to requalify gold / emerald with ba).

from the posts on this board you can tell that the real spenders on tickets ( do not get me wrong, i am NOT one of them , but try some mails from merry or b.watson) start looking for alternative carriers if they encounter seat neighbours waving a cheap charly ticket and an upgrade voucher in front of their nose while they themselves have spend thousands of bucks to buy something that was supposed to be exclusive.

everybody , including me,will appreciate the nice little extras like an upgrade , but i think if some airlines will not realize soon that it is not quantaty but quality ($$$ ! ) of tickets sold that pays for the bills , we will see some more go down the drain shortly.

IMHO, it has long ago switched from customer loyalty into something else rather profitable to some in many ways:

Mass marketing/hype.
(That's why you have the voucher wavers)

I would not want to be a CEO of an airline myself right now.

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

Certainly an interesting point, however the people who would be targeted for these "extra special ultra elite tiers" are the ones who fly paid J, or mostly full paid F on business. Given the current economy these peopel are GREATLY decreasing in numbers, i.e. even companies with huge travel budgets such as the big 5 investment banks now make almost everyone fly J instead of F. Companies with slightly smaller budgets make their business travellers fly full Y instead of J ..etc...

The very few people who actually pay full J or F for leisure are too few and far between to be taken into account.

In a nutshell, airlines are seeing huge dropoffs in their top tier members as it is, introducing a higher tier is probably not a good idea right now.