I think it's safe to assume it's status quo at this point. If they make major changes, it will be in Q1 so that everyone will have the whole year to react. I mean, it's not like they'd fundamentally change the program 3/4 of the way through the year such that you're qualifying for a different (aka lessened) status level than what you thought, right?

We know that the announcement with details for the 2013 Mileage Plus program is late compared to previous years. But does anyone know the reasons why, or care to speculate?

Folks already had done this in a 2013 thread

Maybe we should all start calling MP and asking about the 2013 program...?

Can anyone recall a year in which there were absolutely NO changes?

one change has already been announced, the change in RPU/GPU expiration (and made retroactive).

It's entirely possible that the issues that plagued the airline during the spring & summer might have spawned a very progressive program to reward people for sticking with the company, but United held back when it became clear that AA wasn't having much success with their poaching program, and Delta for all intents & purposes has ignored United entirely.

Every day they delay is another day for incremental improvement in United's overall operations, and another day to consider that small things like meal service order might offset far more expensive changes to their FF program.

In general, unless the changes are going to be very positive, there's nothing in it for United to announce early. Why give people a chance to react & flee if they see something they don't like?

That would be unthinkable.

What is the measure of successful? They definitely took some HVF from UA which had to have exacerbated UA's problems at least somewhat.

At FTU at LAX a few days ago, a talking head had a presentation that stated two major US carriers will move to revenue based FFM and also IPO their FF holding companies...FWIW....

At a minimum, they'll have to change "2012" to "2013" on the website.

This makes complete sense, except it doesn't take into account who we're dealing with here.

CO management is extremely arrogant and is not accustomed to competition. I think it took them this long to realize that people have left and they will have to work to earn back that business (hence the recent changes). Recall Jeff's comment about the road being closed, and now the road is open again, so people will come back [on their own]. Prior to that they were in denial that customers had left, which they now freely admit. They have no idea what they're doing in terms of managing their customer relationships, and they completely discounted what is important to the lucrative PMUA customers. But they cannot see that because they really don't understand it (let alone, their culture discourages them from admitting another carrier does/did something better).

So I would not necessarily attribute CO's lack of a significant competitive response as failure by AA and DL to poach effectively. Rather, I would attribute CO's lack of significant response to their naivety and unfamiliarity doing business in a much more competitive environment that they now find themselves in.

Would love this. As a Premier Executive who travels so rarely domestically, it would be nice to get a guaranteed upgrade when I travel domestically.

Would be nice to at least "opt out" of CPU and get some RPU's in exchange.

I'd be very interested in thoughts here but I can't imagine a spin-out of FF programs being economic in any viable way. Also, given the fact that operational decisions within the FF program would continue to have massive implications for the airline (and vice versa), I can't imagine they would actually run the two separately. I'll eat my hat when that roadshow comes through.

This is not a new idea and, for instance, was done a few few years back (june 2008) by AC & Aeroplan
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18889049-post2.html

And Aeroplan now competes with SkyPesos for worst program in North America

Air Canada is without a doubt the worst program in North America. It really is for flyers that are stuck using AC monopoly position, and have little choice but to suffer the program.