Why won't airlines just take $ for status?
 

Judging by the activity on the mileage run forum, it's pretty clear that the butt-in-seat rule applies to pretty much all airlines when it comes to earning EQM. People are clearly willing to spend money on MRs to get status. If you hunt and search on NW and time things right, you can get 18,000 EQM for about $800 (maybe less).

So why can't you just tell the airline look, I'll give you $800 for these flights I have picked out, you give me the EQM, and then you sell the seats again -- thereby making twice as much money? Seems it'd be more efficient for the passenger to just pay what it's worth to them for status ( like for lounge access) and more profitable to the airline, which could resell the seats!

The reason is because people doing that would be able to acquire status for a far smaller amount of money than just about everyone (even FT'ers) actually achieve status for. Me, for example, would simply book a series of inexpensive SJC-JFK flights on AA, and POW! I'd have a lot of miles and status for cheap (since that's a fairly cheap market).

I believe, in a sense, status IS for sale -- if you are bandying about enough money -- for example, corporate travel departments negotiating new contracts often get status for all their employees...even those who won't be flying much.

Steve

Occasionally they have, for requalification. CO did this last year, or the year before, and I think others did as well.

The downside is alienating the real frequent flyers who do qualify the old-fashioned way.

Hence, the airlines are very careful in this regard.

It is for sale. American Express Black Centurion Card for $2,500.00 a year.

Because status is still one of the few things you can't just buy, you have to earn it. Though this year just buying first class tickets on some airlines gets you status twice as fast.

I like it to be an earned thing, I think if it was availabe for a fee withoug staying the hotel nights or flying the airline miles, then it would be way too diluted.

A couple of months ago, LH sent me a letter, offering me Senator status requalification for 1,600 euros.

I think more importantly that even though a few people might be able to achieve status fairly cheaply based on flights from where they live this does not apply to most. Opening up so that anyone that wanted to pay for the cheapest ticket the airline sells would in fact end up making it a losing proposition. I have literally taken advantage of a promo where I ended up with more miles than the cost of the tickets. If everyone could just pay $1,000 and end up with status and enough airmiles to fly First Class to Australia woudn't everyone prettymuch quit paying for tickets and just buy the airmiles?

------------------
"A day without FF Miles is like a day without SUNSHINE"

On American you can (at various times) effectively buy lifetime status. Lifetime gold once you've had 1million miles flow through your account, lifetime platinum after 2million. Note, NOT flight miles, miles from any source. So, if you have a way of purchasing AA miles, you can purchase lifetime status. I think many people did this with the InsideFlyer Starwood pts offer a few years ago. I don't know if there's currently any way to purchase AA miles in large quantities or not. I hit 2m on AA primarily through flight and credit card.

Of course 'lifetime' is lifetime of the program, so being a pessimist I'm just waiting for the day to come when they rename 'gold' to 'Molybdenum' and 'platinum' to 'praseodymium'.

Unfortunately, the annual limits on mileage purchase would make this impractical - even if lifetime gold was worth the $25K, or lifetime PLT the $50K, that it would cost via this route.

For the past two years (this and next) AA has let some people pay to keep first-tier (Gold) and mid-tier (PLT) status, though. There are some restrictions: you have to have earned it the hard way the year before, you have to have flown a good fraction of the miles, though not enough to requalify; and you only get to do it once. There's more on this in the AA boards, with some folks feeling it dilutes status but most agreeing that the restrictions keep the dilution within reason.

where's valumags when you need them? and why didn't i buy more magazines? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I have been given MR Silver, HH Gold, and SPG Gold for free - without asking for it.

I have been given DL Silver and NW Gold by my company's travel agent without asking for it. e.g., DL and NW did a deal with my company whereby they comped status for everybody. I was actually a bit annoyed about it because I had no use for those airlines at that particular time and I know these things are sometimes considered once-in-a-lifetime. If, in the future, I have a need for either NW or DL, I wonder if they will get nasty with me about having been comped before.

This little thread inspired me to go to the spreadsheet and total up my cost spent on tickets for renewing gold elite status, since I've already done so and don't need more MRs this year. I requalified it on 50,000+ flown base miles, BTW, and no flown miles earned more than 1 EQM (i.e. no paid business or first class).

The total spent on tickets that earned the miles that earned the status......(drum roll)..............$1,134.18. Probably a personal record low.

The results were skewed slightly by being able to get a 20K ScoreCard Award ticket to Europe that counted as a paid ticket and kicked in around 9K EQMs (total would be around $1,500 without that).

Also contributing greatly was an LAX-SIN RT on a very short-lived $265 ($325 after tax) special at the height of the SARS thing.

As you might guess, all my flying was for leisure and on my own dime. But since I don't do "pure" MRs and always make at least a 3-day trip of it, the total travel expenses were much higher.

Also spent some $488.30 total on a second airline, mostly under combinations of mileage specials. That was mainly for total miles, and it earned enough for a Hawaii award trip next year, plus the 3 RTs it paid for.

Anyway, it all probably puts me solidly in the low-rev camp, but in most cases I'd wager the alternative for the airline was an empty seat.

Nonetheless, I doubt that if they sold gold status outright they'd sell it for that.

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited Dec 22, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited Dec 22, 2003).]

I've been lifetime gold and soon after plat for more years then I can remember - and since I've been EXP since that program began - I've never really thought about the 'lifetime' value of such status. What is the value? Any thoughts?

(Now lifetime AC or RCC or CrownRoom I understand http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )


------------------
Dance as if no one's watching, Sing as if no one's listening and live live everyday as if it were your last

AA offers gold for $395 aand plat for $595 if you previously qualified. And UA just offered to double your miles for $100, which means you can basically qualify for half the normal requirement. CO has also offered to increase your miles by x% upon payment of a fee the last 2 years.

So in some sense, status can in fact be purchased. IMO, AA is the smartest of the bunch because it collects the money but doesn't even provide a seat in return.

The double miles on the CO offer didn't count toward elite qualification. I would have signed up if it had.

Do the extra miles from the UA deal count toward elite qualification? And if so, where do I sign up? That'd be a great deal.