Stand alone carriers such as SWA can easily use revenue based programs. Within an alliance such as *A, how can you mix the two things. I think it will continue with any adjustments being less that 100 % EQMs if there is a change.

The same way many airlines already do. If you are not at or above a specific fare class you only receive 70, 50, or 0% EQMs

No, that doesn't work. There is a ton of business travel that has to be booked via a corporate travel agency whether online or via the phone.

But that would mean if I flew segments *A at mixed fares, and UA gets only the discount revenue, the FF benefit would match the discount UA revenue......oh......I see......that would never work.....

The only thing this accomplishes is that there will be fewer elites. It will not increase revenue. I doubt that any significant number of elites book on sites like travelocity. Elites who don't book on the UA website are simply required by corporate policy to book via their corporate travel agent.

And that's kind of the problem with the whole revenue model. I suspect that a very significant percentage of loyal flyers are corporate flyers, and they are obligated to purchase the lowest-cost tickets no matter what.

I have no problem with UA wanting to pamper those who purchase expensive tickets. But if UA cares about loyalty, it needs to continue to reward loyalty in some reasonable way.

Passengers that spend more are not worth more unless they are buying higher fare classes when lower fare classes are still available.

Filling the plane (frequency of flying) is more important than price paid in most cases.

More on this topic here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ther-than.html

So... what is the latest that UA has ever released the following year's Mileage Plus information? Last year's was posted on Wed., Sep. 21, 2011. Are they really going to wait until DECEMBER? This is getting a bit silly.

Maybe management has had higher priorities sorting out its pilots' contracts and hasn't had time to approve whatever the MileagePlus guys have proposed?

Agree that it seems pretty late. I am delaying some 2013 travel purchases while waiting for the other shoe to drop.

+1 Me too, really hope they are going to come up with something really awesome for FFs and not just $mi$ek( or whatever his last name is)

LOL!! Yeah, I agree! Like I said, let's not reinforce it then, we should talk about our "dream" FF program...or something like that.

I'm still thinking about improvements, I'll post them soon...@:-)

I'd like to see more ticket flexibility in higher level fares for top tiers. Say one free change on W or maybe Q and up fares. Or a discounted change fee.

Frankly, I don't know why they don't differentiate the fare classes better. It seems there should be something in between a fully refundable Y/B fare and a $250 change fee U/H/Q/V/W fare. In fact, all of those fares have almost the same rules from a consumer perspective. Why not differentiate them a bit?

Maybe 2013 will remain the same as 2012 - no changes...?!

If you think most corporate travelers have carte-blanche when buying their own tickets, think again. "The System" prevents it. We are obligated to use the corporate travel gatekeeper (Concur in my case) for all flights. I would risk termination if I bypassed it.

If you are fortunate enough to have the luxury of using someone else's money to buy FCYBM, you already have a revenue-based status. It's called GS.

Enough with this foolishness.

Better no changes than Smi$ek "enhancements."

If that's true, why not announce it months ago? No change is easy.

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While there has been many recommendations, suggestions, and speculations on what UA would or could do, most of them are from the point of view on how the airline can extract revenue. However, I think it is equally important to recognize that the airline needs to best understand their customer base first above all else.

As it's been pointed out, high revenue flyers are great but cannot solely sustain their business. Low fare frequent business flyers make an equally important contribution. Designing a FF program that pisses off too many of those who actually sit on the plane is a sure way to lose revenue.

UA has enough statistics to make a decision... whether they choose to heed that or make a run for high revenue flyers only is entirely management's call. They've shown tremendous amount of poor judgement in how to implement their IT system (SHARES, I'm looking at you), so it's anyone's guess if they will do something to screw their FF program up.

This is really getting ridiculous at this point.