LASUA1K

Due to being a MM now it doesnt affect me but I did take my butt over to WN and AA. I no longer "have" to fly UA. As a silver the last 2 years, many 1k years, I spent over 15k a year on tickets! Lots of last minute travel. I had 42000 miles. Am I not important? How many 1ks spend more than me?? I really wish we had a tier baseon money. Yes GS but thats too much. At WN I earn status due to my walk up fares. Very high always book bus select. This year with AA's deqm, i earned AA status. Equivalant to UA Gold! All that would go to UA but I dont feel wanted by the new UA. I will fly whoever bests meets my schedule. i will no longer choose UA because of E+. UA please respect silvers. Not all of us spend a few hundred to achieve silver. I have spent over 30kin two years and Im sure other silvers have also.

Also a quick question, why hasnt UAinsider given us the real reason? UA will sell these E+ seats! With silvers booking the back of the plane, non elites will purchase for a fee, those E+ seats! They wont have any seats open in the back as silvers will be in them. That is the real reason. Also, 74 dollar discount on a yearly membership? Are you kidding me? Big insult!

Golds are prob next to lose the benefit!

ctp

I'm not really sure how you are gauging "last minute" and expensive? We are not even two months into the year and I've spent almost $12k for about 30k miles. I've lately been doing a lot of last minute trips, but they cost $1500 round trip at less than 7 days out. I only started traveling like this last September, so I'm glad I made 1k (barely) and only slightly disappointed I didn't make GS.

The new changes suck, but it sounds like you've already found the answer that works for you by changing airlines.

On the other hand, most of my flying is on regionals, where the only special seats are the exit row (RJ145/200), so I'm pretty happy when I get to fly E+, let alone get that magical bump to NF.

PDXPremier

You just found out about this? I'll admit, as a Silver myself, it's sad news, but it's definately old news at this point....many of the Silvers that jumped ship probably did so months ago when the news first broke.

Live4Upgrade

I think it is fantastic that UA is decreasing the benefits of Silver. It makes is much easier to snag E+ as a 1K booking tickets <1 week out. Now, if they would make Premier Access line only for Gold and higher.....

25k in a year is nothing. Less than 2 R/T trips to Asia or 2 domestic R/Ts per month with a connection and 500 mile minimum per leg.

LASUA1K

This is why it should be money based! I would be 1k too but I svoid all Regional flying with WN. When I was 1k i never had trouble snagging a E+ seat. I was usually in first or if I had a bad seat, check af the gate and slways got a better seat. And as a 1K I never spent over 20K. And it was more like 5K. A trip a year to SIN and two to LHR with some domestic thrown in. Those 1k's are worth less to UA then current silvers.

Again, I'm s MM now so it doesnt affect me but eventually golds will probably lose the benefit soon. But if higher elites think this is great then you are wrong.

We should be sticking together on this but the "happy 1k's" are blinded. I too was blinded as a 1k, UA was the only airline but I'm happy I've opened my eyes and see the changes being and Im happy to not be stuck with one airline.

I'm not the only one. Several ex UA elites are now flying out of MDW to avoid the barbie jets! Its a shame that several markets have only one mainline or none.

worldwidedreamer

Airline accounting tends to be too simple---the focus is on RASM and CASM without talking about fixed segment/itinerary costs. FFPs evolved accordingly and consequently have the the same accounting failure. I feel that the intelligent solution is to view a point as a form of accrued discount and allow it to be applied to future travel. I would also award status based on profitability, i.e. 5% most profitable customers=Plat, 10%=Gold, 25% silver.

FWIW, If the average domestic fare is $359.70, and goes approximately 1,000 miles, I would use a $1 of revenue earns 2.78 points ratio. The big downside to such a shift is that it would be much easier for employers to claim the discount earned by their employees or the IRS to view such a discount as a form of taxable income.

UAzip

If they want to see the remaining Silvers bolt for elsewhere, they will do something like that.

The E+ benefit going from selection at booking to selection at checkin was a drastic devaluation and more importantly a terrible bait and switch to do so late in the year. The to offer Silvers the "discount" of $75 which brings annual E+ down to the price it used to be anyway? They said last fall that they may discount it--turns out the discount they just announced takes it to the price they were charging last fall! Call that a discount? (And dropping to one 50-lb bag, leading US to do the same? Why bother doing that? That gives the impression, possibly true, that they are just trying to tell Silvers to buzz off.)

They could have done something like capacity-control the E+ at booking for Silvers so with early enough booking or a light load it might be possible to get a seat, otherwise wait for check-in. How about maybe saving some rows of E- for Silvers then? As it is, a Silver booking close-in may hit the situation of empty E+ that they can't reserve and a full E- section. Guess what the best option is then? Not booking UA and hoping to snag E+ (as you don't know how many others will be also doing so)...best option is going to someone else!

It's only fair to allow a 1K paying through the nose last-minute a chance at E+, but the shaft of E+ and baggage benefits being slashed for Silvers was and is too much.

As far as eliminating Premier Access for Silvers, if you as a 1K are in Zone 1 boarding, with Silvers boarding several zones later, what's it to you if they have Premier Access anyway?

Often1

That's what corporate contracts which provide a rebate, rather than a discount are for. Rather than committing to a specific spend for a specific spend, you negotiate for a rebate to be paid after the end of the contract and based on the spend during the contract. This can be a great deal for businesses which are uncertain about their spend over the coming year and which absorb the costs of travel. For those which either have certainty or which invoice clients for their travel costs, rebates are not worth it and/or are an accounting nightmare (what do you do with the 10% rebate when you've already been reimbursed by the client for the full amount?).

The simplest solution here is to get rid of the bells and whistles and provide a simple system in which a pax gets some form of credit for every dollar spent on the carrier of choice, on the alliance of choice and on external spends (CC's). Your status is based on spend, not on miles and not on segments. If it takes $20K to make 1K, a single IAD-PEK RT in F gets you 1K. On the other hand, if you fly TCON RT's at $600, that's 33 of them.

The real problem with Silver is that it's so easy and cheap to make it that it's not worth any carrier's while to do anything. By lumping the guy paying $3K for a TCON in with the guy paying $600 for the same flights, you have angered someone you want to keep and rewarded someone you would just as soon would jump ship.

BTW, can't find avail. on WN for PEK over the next few weeks, any ideas?

starflyer

Given your post count, I would think you're a well-informed traveler. Suprised you couldn't find availability to PEK. You certainly must know that WN doesn't fly to PEK, but their Rapid Rewards program provides tickets for international flights on other airlines (typically at a poor exchange ratio). I easily found availability to PEK from several cities in the US on the first date in March that I checked.

Often1

No humor?

WIRunner

I found it quite humourous.

LAX

I don't disagree that UA should take care of the last-minute "pay through the nose" type pax. However, basing the value of 2Ps/Silvers on the mere fact that they "only" fly 25K-49K is a mistake. Some of those 25K-49K could be relatively high fares that make them more valuable than some 1Ks. Plus, what's the ratio of 2Ps/Silvers to 1Ks? Blowing off 2Ps/Silvers is a mistake that will eventually come back to haunt UA if enough bolt.

LAX

Baze

Hence the problem with distance based loyalty programs. I feel a 2P buying full fare is much more valuable than the 1K who buys the cheapest they can. Maybe introduce a GS lite for high spending >25K <50K fliers? Or make revenue another way to make Gold. PG is >50K miles or >$10K spending. Make each level have 2 ways to achieve it, spend or miles.

kwildnj

Just for a datapoint, this Silver-to-be flew no more than 17500 miles last year, on 26 actual flights....Total spend was probably $1750. Of which, less than half was spent in the combined UA/CO.

Thanks to some clever IRROPS/schedule changes (mostly on the part of US Airways) I was rebooked into Y for 8 or so segments, and thats how I got to Silver.


Am I going to complain when I don't get upgraded, nah. Will I be happy when I am? Yessir. Would it be nice to check another bag ? Sure, but my current travel habits do not include the need.

LASUA1K

Why humor? It's true. Its about the same as a standard award. Yes, you can use RR for international travel