sxf24

Since GS qualifications are based on economic contributions, I would venture a guess that UA has the system tools to determine the difference.

I think the challenge is some elites flip out the moment it looks like the program is going to change. Some elites feel entitled to receive certain benefits for a certain amount of flying because that's how it has worked in the past. Go look back at the threads from last summer when there were rumors about about having minimum spend be part of the qualification process...

The legacy carriers created a monster and it will be very difficult to tame it.

AeroWesty

Great Freudian slip there! ^

Did you perhaps mean "commensurate" instead?

sxf24

Darn auto text.

EWR764

Plenty of customers on here may be anonymous, but that is certainly not the case for all posters on this site. The company has a 'face to the name' of many of us.

I do agree with your assessment of the company's perspective on the value of the feedback here. As the board becomes more viciously partisan, bitter and overwhelmingly negative, I think United probably takes us less seriously than in the past.

UA-NYC

To be fair, this "un-virtuous circle" has started due to bitter emnity against this "leadership" team due to their anti-loyal consumer policies and unwavering support for an ineffectual computer system.

So them taking us less seriously is reciprocated by them having minimal credibility with us.

pigx5

This change is done by COdbaUA and not by FTers.

AeroWesty

A number of years ago I watched a program where it showed how companies mined data from the internet. The gestalt of it was that there's data mining software out there that can provide an overview of issues being talked about, and whether the internet postings on each subject were positive or negative, and to what degree. United was an early adopter of this technology, and was used as one of the examples of how the data was used (wish I could remember where I saw this and when).

This kind of technology is probably still in place, and I doubt if much of any partisan bickering is getting through—the people who need to know what's trending on issues will pick up on the major items as they always have, regardless of any bitterness between posters.

I'm no expert on the subject, but my guess is that Flyertalk threads are just lumped into "internet chatter/feedback," without much definition to the source.

Clarkcc1

It is absolutely still in place! The newest wave of companies offering 'internet-data-mining' in this space are those who concentrate on social media. I recently interviewed at a startup in SF which scours the major social media platforms for posts and comments which are relevant for the hospitality industry. These tools offer both high-level sentiment 'dashboards' and the ability to view individual posts focusing on a specific topic, if desired. So United doesn't even need to log-in to FT to either get a temperature reading of a certain topic or theme, they can use a dedicated web-based platform.

However I get the sense that they are choosing to ignore this info, if they even look at it. pmUA cared and acted, COdbaUA doesn't seem to, unfortunately for them and us.

stephenbgarvan

Once again, you have hit the loyal customer nail on the head! Bravo!

FLYDCA

There are commercial solutions which can easily provide United with this data. Here is an example of how companies sort through massive amounts of data to find this stuff.

http://www.sas.com/text-analytics/sentiment-analysis/

sfmaus

I wonder if there's been a conscious decision to get rid of silvers. Maybe it's a new trend in customer relations. I think something like that is going on over at Verizon. Their recent decision to do away with phone subsidies for people with unlimited data plans—which are only available to grandfathered-in customers anyway—was defended in an interview by the marketing guy who came up with the plan. The article says "he suggested they activate an older device they already own or buy an inexpensive one on eBay" if they don't like paying $650 for an iPhone. It seems obvious that their oldest customers are costing them money and they'd rather get rid of them altogether. Could a similar analysis have taken place at UA?

LarkSFO

Is this a serious question?

I'll assume that it is...

UA loves silvers. 25,000 miles per year of flying dedicated to UA is probably more than 80% (WAG on my part) of their flyers.

There is still great benefit(s) to be had being a silver (it definitely beats not being a silver).

All this being said, UA does not love silvers (not as willing to shower them with benefits) as much as they used to, especially relative to golds, platinums, and 1K's.

chinatrdrjnr: WAG = Wild a** Guess, so you don't have to go look it up...

UA-NYC

I'm not sure if the "love" Silvers - they tolerate them, and they clearly don't want any more of them

Now if we want to talk about "not liking" any elite level, 1K surely rises to the top.

Clarkcc1

Agreed.

I'm guessing the next step is another modification in the boarding process:

1) Chase credit card holders (clearly the most important customer now)
2) General OnePass members (sorry, Mileage Plus)
3) *S/Silver
4) *G/Plat, etc
5) 1K/GS
6) everyone else

Would keep those pesky actual 'frequent fliers' out of the way for the most profitable customer: CC holders and kettles.

entropy

that's because the benefits that 1Ks get (especially SWU) UA thinks of as "losing money".
(e.g. a 1K will spend SWU instead of cash on a business class seat). They don't think of it as "a 1K will fly us instead of (pick almost any int'l airline, they're mostly better/cheaper) on their leisure trip with the wife, buy a much more expensive fare to use the SWU, etc."

instead they think they're losing a full J fare. dumb.