Strategies
 

What with all of the announcements today about charges and fees, and certainly not to discount the decision to reduce staff at NWA, I am starting to think about changing my whole miles and points strategy.

I've come up with a plan, but want to share it because I know I will get feedback :p

Step One: Continue to fly NW and NW/DL primarily for qualifying miles. MSP is home for me. The goal is to get to Gold or Plat for the benefits when traveling: upgrades, great support line, etc.
Qualify, qualify, qualify!

Step Two: Remove efforts to earn bonus miles with NWA. Take them as a benefit from status, but get rid of anything else, such as the Worldperks Visa card. Maybe rent a car from someone else. Since the earnings should drop considerably, donate the remaining to one of the NWA charity partners. Yeah, save enough for maybe a few free flight per year. (YMMV)

Step Three: Transfer those charges from such as the Worldperks Visa to another travel affinity card. Continue to earn miles or points, but to a more stable product.

Results:

1. I continue to fly NWA and pay whatever fares and fees that are their whim. (still using all FT strategies!)

2. I might take a reward flight occasionally.

3. I've moved to a more flexible rewards program.

Winners?

1. NWA - we still fly the red tail (such as it may be...)

2. Charity partners - let's hope.

3. New travel partner affinity cards - maybe.

(Lots of fudging here, huh?)


Losers?

1. The airline affinity credit card programs

2. The hotel (or other) affinity card program. We're dumping miles to them rather than the airlines, I hope they are ready.

3. Me. Us. Because we will always come up short. :eek:


Boy, if I only gave this much thought to my retirement plan!! :p

Thoughts, comments, anyone? This is a work in progress.

Cheers,

Pogopossum

I switched a couple of years ago to hotel credit cards versus airlines. I decided then that hotel points were worth more. At the time it was all the BK scares going around and thought I could then switch them over. Now for sure I think hotel points are worth even more. I could not see me wanting an airline CC let alone pay $50- $75 for one now.

I suspect that many others will adopt similar strategies. Basically the airlines have devalued miles to the point that getting them is nice, but will no longer be a factor in many people's decisions.

More and more people will make purchases (hotel, rental car, credit card, etc) based on price and value, independent of receiving miles.

This being the case, the airlines will not be able to sell miles to third parties as easily, or for as much, as they do now.

They might have traded one source of revenue (selling miles) for another (booking fees, fuel surcharges, etc).

I totally agree. I plan to dump my NW visa for sure. As well, I've now got a hard date on my calendar to book all award travel before mid-September before the surcharges for award booking come in. Alas, I can't dump them now as I have no idea what continent I'll be living on come January. Should know by September...I hope.

I'm not sure there is such as thing as "a more stable product", at least with airlines. All airlines (at least the airlines we'd fly, to specifically work with to redeem for international premium cabin seats) appear to be in a downward spiral. I'm hearing more people (including in this thread) that hotel programs is the way to go.

Steve B.

I'm already doing this and would never dream of paying for an airlines card. For one thing, I usually have trouble burning miles, and don't need any more than I get from flying.

I always book the cheapest rental car and the hotel which meets my needs best - never based on mileage earning potential.

I disagree that miles have become devalued - with fares going up miles can be as valuable as ever. However, frequent flyer miles are a fiat currency (devalued at whim by those who own the printing press) and like the US dollar, you take your chances holding them in the long run. The two most obvious examples of this are the additional fees recently announced on previously "free award travel" and strict capacity controls. Both of these serve to perpetually devalue the currency.

The value of the currency depends on the operating environment. When fares are rising but cap controls and fees are stable or falling, the miles are worth more and more. In that situation, it makes sense to hoard miles til you really need them. When fares are stable but fees and cap controls are skyrocketing, the miles are worth less and less. In that situation, burn 'em when you can. Guess which environment we're in now?

The best bet is to accrue a variety of currencies. Cash back rewards, credit card rewards (I use Cap One No Hassle Miles and Citi Thank You Points), hotel points (I use SPG, Hilton, and Marriott), frequent flyer miles, and airline vouchers. Credit card churning can be very profitable in this environment, at some risk to your credit score.

In burning our 360k miles last week, we got northwards of 3.5 cents per mile. That's pretty sweet. There are still deals out there... find them fast.

As for flying... we're going to be lucky to be silver in the near future. Now that we need to pay for a third pax (baby psychtobe), our cost per trip will probably double vs what it was 5 years ago. We'll have to travel less. More trips closer to home, maybe one big trip a year for the time-being.

I have a business TATL trip booked in a few weeks that will finish my NW elite requalification for next year. I had planned to wait down to the bitter end with my fingers crossed that the merger unraveled before changing carriers. Now, I will speed up that process and look for a comp or challenge to another program at least before my next TATL trip. After this stab in the back, NW can get stuffed.

I have already instructed USBank to cancel my card when it comes up for renewal, and I told them why in detail. The more of us that explained to them what the monkeys at NW are doing to them, the better.

Hopefully, we will see in the next few weeks, which lemmings are going to follow DL and its puppy dog NW on this issue. That will help in choosing a new program.

Me too. The SPG card has been great for me. I'm sure that the honeymoon will end with that program, too - look at the award level hikes earlier this year, and then I will just move on. The only reason I see for using an airline-branded card is if any EQMs are frequently enough to push you over the top, or if it comes with a lounge membership that you would otherwise pay for.

Oh please, you give DL too much credit. They aren't innovative enough to come up with this stuff on their own. They are just responding to market conditions, by applying what they learned from the Euros. With 4 of the 6 legacies now on board with award fees of some sort (though the AA fees are low enough to be ignored, for now), and with most/all of the Euro carriers beating them to the punch by a couple of years, one would have to assume that there is an exceedingly high probability that all of the "lemmings" will get on board.

To my mind, I don't think finding another program is the answer. I think the choices will be to try to maximize your benefit under the new rules (which are likely to be pretty universal) or to decide to not play the FF game, and choose on price or schedule or in-flight product.

I see 2 sides to this situation.

(1) The positive
More fees, higher prices. Under the circumstances (weak dollar, high oil prices) it is understandable. The new fees are annoying, but they aren't all that bad. No more "free" tickets, but still considerably cheaper travel. If you travel a lot for work anyway, you get to cash in the miles for dirt-cheap tix. (E.g. spending $400 on 2 TATL tix still beats the hell out of $2000!)

(2) The negative
I think the mileage joyride is about to be over. US FF programs are getting closer and closer to European FF programs, which for the most part reward only very frequent flyers. The best clue for this is the fact that miles expire, so unless you enough within a certain timeframe, all the miles equal 0. Flying 2-3 times/year and eventually accumulating miles for a free ticket might end up being a thing of the past, IMO.

Strategy?
- Burn most (or all) the miles. PerkChoice is great for leftovers!
- I'm not going to travel as much. It's more expensive nowadays. I'm not going to go the extra [frequent flyer] mile to maintain status. Business travel is one thing, leisure trips will definitely take a toll. When I consider taking a trip somewhere, whether that trip contributes to my elite status will no longer be a factor.
- Less convenient routings for the sake of earning more miles: not anymore.
- I resisted loyalty programs credit cards but I have considered getting one lately. Well, you can definitely cross the WP visa off my list now!

I truly hope that more customers and passengers start basing their decisions on in-flight product. Let's face it, the FFP's have been a major factor contributing to the degeneration of the product and service. Let's be honest here, how many of us would have been flying NW when we had the choice if we weren't bribed to do so by WP? Take away the bribery program and you are left comparing the threadbare product.

I have lived by this philosophy for many years and it is why my NW travels other than TATL have been very limited over the years. The basic product is dreadful and the premium domestic product pales in comparison to CO. I can only hope that CO remains unique in that it will not charge for redeeming FF miles but only time will tell.

Your point is well-taken. The only problem is that there isn't much differentiation between the carriers in the domestic market, with the possible exception of CO's domestic F being better than average. Since I think it a waste of money to buy domestic F, that leaves only B6 with an appreciably better product, as far as I am concerned.

Certainly, though, I can't see much reason to choose any US legacy carrier over many of the Asian or European carriers, from a quality perspective. The one exception, to my mind, though is NW Y on the A330, which might be the best Y product for TATL routes. None of the US carriers, however, have a premium product that is competitive with the better foreign carriers.

You can hope, but I wouldn't count on it.

You can hope, but I wouldn't count on it.

C'est vrai mon ami :(

Agree with one caveat here that the premium transcon market NYC-LAX/SFO on AA, UA, CO and perhaps DL? does feature a more "premium experience" :D. Having said that, I agree wholeheartedly and will take the analysis one step further, the legacies are going to charge more and provide less. I really cannot see even if oil prices do come down significantly, hot towels in "Y", free meals, etc. "Dem dar' days have come and gone". Safe travels Y'all.

I can't believe many of you pay $75/year to have airline cards. I thought most FT-ers were the calculate-down-to-the-dime folks.

Personally, I've been using my Hilton Amex card which I love and only at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores. Everything else goes on my cash back cards.

:td: to paying for credit cards to earn miles that are facing more fees and devaluation.