Nothings broke so there's nothing to fix.


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"A day without Points is like a day without SUNSHINE"

Might I suggest a solution - one that seems to have worked reasonably well in the past?

Certainly we can't require the airlines to never raise the "price" of the award travel (although a good case could be made for tying any "price" increase for awards to actual fare increases or actual cost increases - haven't quite figured out the details on how that would work, though). However, I'm not sure the "six-months notice of increases" is sufficient protection for the consumer.

Remember, unlike with "real" currency (that you can take to a store down the street if you don't like the prices in the store you happen to be in), the airline itself is the only game in town. They not only are determining the price, they're also determining availability of the awards.

If your experiences are anything like mine, you will have discovered that finding award availability is not always easy. One time trying to get an award ticket the reservations lady and I went through a six-month period and didn't find *one* award seat available on a particular itinerary during the entire period! (Not an unusual itinerary, either.)

So, I can't agree with you that "If this is not enough time, then I suppose that no amount of time would be enough."

TWA, and other airlines, used to "grandfather" the existing miles when they made a changeover, and allow the holder to use those miles against the "old" award structure. That usually lasted 5 years or so (by which time most of the miles would have been used), although I seem to recall TWA allowing the FFB miles to be used against the old award structure until about a year before they finally were bought by AA.

That seems a fair result to me - grandfather the existing miles and allow those (and only those) to also be used against the old award structure for a significant period of time. I'd say five years should do, but that's a detail that can be worked out.

I agree it is inequitable to the consumer when the folks printing the currency can devalue it willy-nilly. That's a third-world trait.

and the airlines are run like??????

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"A day without Points is like a day without SUNSHINE"

Airlines bleed money, require government aid, has lots of unionized worker they pay starvation wages to (and then appease with benefits like free travel), and old airlines die to be replaced by new airlines doing the exact same thing.

Seems like many airlines share similar characteristics as third world nations.

Is there anywhere a link that to see the new award requirements? Thanks in advance.

Oops found it....

[This message has been edited by dudman (edited 12-29-2002).]

Look, guys, you may not like it. I don't. But they can do whatever the heck they want with their program. If they want to, they can kill the program, without giving any notice. So there's nothing we can do about it. We can either decide that we want to continue to use the program, with all its rules and policies, or we can decide we don't want to. That's our choice.

A class action lawsuit? For what? Doing exactly what they said they could do in the terms and conditions of the program? Some tort lawyer will make a lot of money off it, because AMR will likely settle to rid themselves of the lawsuit, but you and I won't see squat.

I agree.

Previously-earned points or miles should not be subject to devaluation, any more than a gift card for a department store. Ever. (In CA and other states, it is illegal for such a card to expire, no matter what it says.) Anything less just legalizes the sale of pigs in pokes.

If a particular award is no longer available as in Steve M's examples, the company should be required to substitute one of comparable value. This is not just common sense, it's the law in other areas of commerce (as when a retail store runs out of an advertised sale item).

The trouble is that legislators have not quite gotten around to the idea that points and miles are valuable things deserving many of the same protections afforded to real money. But they will.

Say hello to taxable events.

Exactly right. And a department store can raise its prices so that the gift card buys less than what you might have expected it to buy when you purchased it a year ago.

You are arguing against yourself! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

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Vasant

You're points are not expiring or being taken away their purchasing power is being eroded just like the $1 bill in your wallet. Why is this so hard to understand when month after month you continue to accept paper money, for pay and payment, that is backed by nothing but the promise of politicians?

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"A day without Points is like a day without SUNSHINE"

I agree with those who argue that the airlines not only have the right to devalue miles, but can be expected to do so in an environment of huge losses and gazallions of $$$ worth of liability in terms of miles on the books. Looking back to the beginning of FF programs with American Advantage, non-expiring miles are the greatest innovation ever for travelers, IMHO. It's also what has given rise to discussions like this.

Like money or stock, if you want to redeem your miles for what you consider to be today's full value, then you need to redeem TODAY. If you want to carry a large balance, then you will continue to be exposed to the liability of changes in the program until you redeem for an award at the price in effect at the time you take action. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

My own response is to try not to carry a balance of miles in my FF account that would be greater than I would require to purchase two r/t tickets to anywhere in the world at a moment's notice without worrying about capacity controls (around 200,000 miles). Others have to decide what works for them, but the writing seems to be on the wall in terms of devaluation, doesn't it?

They could have pulled a CO style http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gifenhancement http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif, kept the mileage requirement, but have made it d@mn near impossible to get a standard reward due to "capacity control" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

[This message has been edited by snake (edited 12-29-2002).]

What do you mean by "comparable value?" In my example of FC travel to Australia on QF, what's comparable? Would it be an international award to somewhere in FC whose full fare is around $13,000+ for 135,000 miles? Or, would it be specifically a FC award to Australia?

If the latter, how would this work in practice? Unless AA and QF had an agreement which allowed AA to purchase QF award inventory at whatever their internal oneworld pricing was indefiniately in the future, even if oneworld falls apart, I don't see how AA could do this. Even such an agreement from QF wouldn't be a total proctection from a situation such as QF discontinuing service to the US.

Certainly you don't expect them to be in a position to actually buy a $13,000+ ticket from some other airline in return for 135,000 miles? Or, would other airlines forced to accept an alliance contracted FF rate from a non-partner? Such a law would indeed provide great protection to the consumer. The problem is that no airline would offer the award in the first place if it meant taking on such a huge future potential liability.

Don't get me wrong: I do think the airlines have at least a moral obligation to us to not make sweeping changes with no notice. In fact, I think that many airlines' programs have in their own rules that they must provide notice of a certain amount before changes such as this are implemented, and I think that's a good thing.

One of the points I was trying to make is that for a lot of us, the mileage redemption levels are secondary to the route maps and especially the partner airlines. Using myself as an example, I accumulate most of my credit card miles on AA and not my usual carrier because of the wonderful selection of AAdvantage partner airlines, including oneworld. If that were to go away, my accumulated AAdvantage miles would be devalued around 75% in their worth to me. This would be much more serious to me than a minor increase in redemption requirements.

In fact, OZ is leaving AAdvantage as of Dec 31, and that was one of the carriers I was planning on getting an award on someday. I just don't see how AA could be forced to grandfather me into the all the existing AAdvantage awards in the face of such a change. I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

[This message has been edited by Steve M (edited 12-29-2002).]

Just reading an article in today's paper (Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service) arguing that the laws governing airlines ought to be re-considered.

In the article, the authors claim that the workers have the airlines by the short and curlies - in 1990, average compensation was $47,384; in 2002 it's in excess of $80,000. 40 percent of total operating expenses.

This doesn't mean that ramp rats are getting 80K a year, but the salaries, along with flight bennies, hardly seem like starvation wages.

Quoting BidCat:
The trouble is that legislators have not quite gotten around to the idea that points and miles are valuable things deserving many of the same protections afforded to real money. But they will.

Oh great, yet another thing for the government to get involved with, just what we need. Then we can have them decide the value, and then we'll have to pay tax at an inflated value that the government will levy. I'm sure the value of an award ticket would be the highest coach ticket the airline sells. Sorry that is an "enhancement" I can live without.

I'm not crazy about the awards requiring more miles, but that is just like many thing in life, not always fair. At least the airlines take a step toward being fair, giving some notice before a change takes effect, and six months enough time to figure out when you might want to take a trip, as you can book a trip up to 12 months in advance. I would rather see mileage inflation rather than limiting even more award seats, which can be done with a whole lot less fanfare than raising the miles required.

My DSL provider just went out of business and although I'm not happy about it, at least they will keep their network operational for 30 days so I can find a new provider. Do I think the government should force them to give me 60, 90 or more? I would love longer notice, but they are going out of business, losing money every day they stay in business, and at least they give me 30 days notice, that is more than be expected by most people.

Now let us not forget when the airlines started cutting mileage requirements. I can remember when domestic award tickets were 30,000 or 40,000 miles instead of the current 25,000. Did anyone complain, or did anyone suggest the government should step in when the requirement was lowered? Using your grocery store argument, years ago I was flying and saving up points for domestic coach tickets at 40,000 miles, so the airline should not be "allowed" to change it to 25,000 any more than they should be "allowed" to change it to 50,000. Or do we only ask for government intervention when something is determental?

Frequent flyer programs change, not always for the better, but I much prefer the free market to dictate, such as was the case when all the airlines lowered mileage requirements for tickets after one program did it. As long as there is competition the system can police itself. Look at how the airlines dropped the $100 standby fee when United dropped theirs. If one Frequent Flyer program gets out of kilter with the others they face defection, and usually change the disliked policy. Free enterprise has a better track record than government intervention, and there are more pressing issues that the government should be concerning themselves with instead of if American can charge 5,000 more miles for an award.

As far as how I value my FF miles, I don't think of them as money in the bank, but more as a rebate for my business. With limited inventory for award seats it is hard to put a real value on the seats. Yes a First Class ticket to London can cost $6,000, it's hard to consider an award ticket to be worth $6,000 as the airline isn't going to give you as an award ticket the last seat that they could have sold for $6,000.

My guess is the inventory of award tickets comes from their lowest cost fare bucket. That would be the logical way to handle award travel. I wish the airlines would be more up front about this, and even say that award travel can be booked whenever L class, K class or N class inventory is available. Southwest is the most honest with their program, having very few blackout dates and if there is a seat on the plane someone can get it with a Rapid Rewards certificate.

As far as grandfathering the miles, for existing award levels that would be a classy move by the airlines, but I don't expect to see it, and really the 6 month notice gives you some protection. Delta still lets Medalion members claim awards under the old system using their old frequent flyer miles. Their 25,000 mile first class domestic award can still be obtained, and that award went away when it became "SkyMiles" which must have been at least 10 years ago. My American account still shows miles that never expire even though they changed their policy (again because of the competition) allowing miles not to expire as long as you fly every 3 years.

So as much as I hate to defend the frequent flyer programs I have to agree that they have the right to change the terms of the program. I don't always like them, but there are a lot of things in life I don't like but learn to live with. There are also examples where the airlines changed something and then realized, or were forced to realize that the change wasn't good and they changed it back. I for one would rather have this system than having the some governmental agency decide if a frequent flyer program could raise or lower the cost of an award by a few thousand miles. At least with free enterprise if I don't like one of the "enhancements" to the program I can vote with my feet and credit card and give my business to the airline that gives me the perks that I like.