Fredd

I'm trying to focus on the issues, and the lengthy back-and-forth debate here helps me clarify my own thoughts.

IMHO there's an elephant in the room. The merger has given cover for the new UA to make a paradigm-shifting move back toward the model that rewards cash spent more than miles flown. That's discussed here and elsewhere. That's a perfectly understandable business decision, whether I or anybody else thinks it's a wise one. The purpose of any company including UA is to make money. Things change. As UA changes MP going forward, I as a customer can review my options and accept them or not. That's a simple and rational business decision. However, what UA previously promised me as lifetime benefits is another matter.

The criteria for the airlines' pre-merger MM programs differed. AFAIK CO flyers accepted lifetime Silver as an appropriate incentive and reward for achieving MM under CO's more generous criteria which went beyond BIS miles. UA Insider recently posted elsewhere what was used to level the playing field.

That list and the bump-up stats that resulted make it clear that many UA fliers, including me, would have reached MM status years earlier under those criteria. That helps me understand why CO MMers seem generally happy with the revised program, including their promotion to Gold status.

Under UA's more demanding BIS criteria, as Pat89339 posted, UA promised us "Lifetime Premier Executive® status in our Mileage Plus program" up to quite recently. Now UA has chosen to eliminate this status. IMHO UA wasn't exploiting this as a sneaky trick to break their promise to MMers - that's simply a consequence. IMHO the right thing for UA to do is to confirm this consequence was unintended by honoring its "lifetime" commitment, even if 1P status no longer exists.

I'm pleased for the CO IEs. I'm happy for the CO MMers, even while wondering to what extent the new influx of various elites and their designees will put Mrs. Fredd and me farther back in line for UGs, exit rows, and E+. It's encouraging that some FTers express a similar understanding of my own desire not to lose (or to see seriously diminished) my "lifetime benefits."

Like other companies UA reserves the right to change the rules or even to cancel a program. There's been a lot of litigation and even legislation in some jurisdictions surrounding "lifetime" health club and campground memberships. What "lifetime" means is one of those concepts that lawyers can argue profitably. Put simply, IMO it's not right for UA (or any other company or individual) to promise me for life the benefits within a program, category, or status, e.g. 1P, and subsequently to eliminate that title, maintain the benefits (UGs, mileage bonuses) elsewhere under one or more other titles, but brazenly (IMO) tell me I'm no longer entitled to them. It's as if UA told lifetime RCC members their memberships are no longer valid because RCCs no longer exist.

A few of us dinosaurs are still striving to have UA honor its commitment to lifetime Silver Wings members who purchased "lifetime" memberships some years ago before UA collapsed the program. Sound familiar? Still, it's encouraging that, once we finally got the attention of UA management, we're being taken seriously and treated with respect, even if the problems themselves haven't been fixed yet.

Whether UA chooses to rely on its legal rights, or to do the right thing by the UA BIS MMers, as it did the right thing by the CO IEs, is still an open question. The clock is ticking.

nmenaker

Yes, things should usually read or be interpreted as:

"Liftetime"


***(subject to change without notice)***

Baze

But it could be said lifetime has many meanings. Whose lifetime? Yours? Uniteds? The Mileage Plus program? The squirrel next door? But yes, you have hit it right on the head.

And Fredd,

your post is the most level headed, thought out succinct post I have yet seen in this entire thread. No yelling, No crying, No telling others FT'ers they are wrong. Just fact based. Thank you. Not everyone will agree with what you wrote, not everyone will disagree. It just lays things out on the table as they are.

BDLORD

^

bmvaughn

I absolutely agree with Fredd with one exception - "at the end of every year" does not mean the same thing to me as "lifetime".

UA-NYC

I would disagree with you on this - "at the end of every year" suggests perpetuity, which for all intents and purposes equals lifetime.

dgcpaphd

Of course, you are correct. What else could it mean?

As many have said, the new UA management has caused a lot of disappointed UA customers to begin looking to other air carriers for future travel.

Breached promises have a direct relationship to credibility and loyalty.
-

Fredd

There's no question that a lot of debating points are being recycled. However, new information, e.g. the quasi-consensus emerging from ozstamps and others, Pat89339's recent copy-and-paste of UA's actual e-mail welcoming her to "Lifetime Premier Executive® status in our Mileage Plus program" continues to make the thread interesting, relevant, and useful.

The posters who are continuing to come to this thread for the first time are unlikely to read through every post, so it's not as repetitive for them as it is for some of us who have been contributing and reading from the outset. As I read through those new threads reporting bump-ups and asking questions, I've been struck by the lack of knowledge of the changes demonstrated by many experienced FTers, along the lines of "I'm now nearly a two-million-mile flyer but I don't know what I get for that." IMO this thread continues to be useful, despite the perceived repetition.

It's certainly obvious that people can honestly interpret differently such phrases as "at the end of every year" or "as you always have." Within the context of that "Lifetime Premier Executive® status" I think my own interpretation is reasonable, which makes it all the more useful for me to learn why others come to a different interpretation. YMMV.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

I keep coming back in hopes of reading something positive. My opinion.

u2vox

This sums up how I've been feeling so well:

Bravo, bravo, bravo for hitting the nail on the head and putting into a few sentences what I've been feeling. We can argue semantics, legality, definition, etc., etc., etc. all day long, but it is simply not right for UA to do what they have done here. Plain and simple.

bldr1k

How can anyone debate what lifetime means? It means the member's lifetime.

Otherwise, how should we interpret UAInsider's new program benefits

New lifetime benefits. Big changes here, and we think you’ll agree this is the most generous lifetime program in the world. The following will take effect next spring (so please hold tight until then):
. . .

Should we all just assume now that in 5 years, after more people have hit 4M miles, that GS will be superseded by a new SS (Super Services) program and GS looses many of its benefits? Kind of like chasing a rainbow - when you get there it moves.

Baze

Anytime the benefits change it proves it is not your lifetime but the lifetime of that rendition of the program.

Look carefully at definition #2

life·time (lftm)
n.
1. The period of time during which an individual is alive.
2. The period of time during which property, an object, a process, or a phenomenon exists or functions.

This is exactly how they can get away with the changes.

mre5765

Or flying 4MM BIS miles.

Years ago a relative returned an item with a lifetime warranty that became defective after less than a year. The return was rejected with the explanation that the item's lifetime was over.

Xyzzy

It seems that anything is possible when promising a lifetime of benefits. I was amused this evening while fixing a PC to find that the bx for a new video card advertises this:I can't imagine that the card will last twice as long as I will.

Fredd

I looked at Definition #2 but first I looked at Definition #1.

Yes, "get away with..." When you write that I'm not sure we really disagree. Can you please expand on that? As I wrote above, lawyers can argue that point profitably (a cute comment my late reporter-father heard one lawyer say to another at a city council meeting a few decades ago). Indeed, such a profitable argument is occurring here for one recent example.

It's one thing to imply I was naďve or ignorant to believe UA made a legally enforceable commitment to provide me with the benefits of Premier Executive for the duration of my lifetime.

It's another to argue that UA is doing the right thing, i.e. the moral thing by reducing those lifetime benefits, particularly in contrast to the respect with which CO IEs and MMers have been treated.

To go rhetorical, would you be satisfied to fly on an airline committed only to meeting the minimum legal safety requirements in all of its operational aspects, or would you prefer one with a corporate culture committed to meeting higher standards?

I'm not asking what you think UA can "get away with..." I'm asking how you would treat me if you were UA.