goalie

Bolding mine: very well said ^

Imho, logic hasn't applied since Co bought merged with UA

Yup ^ as they've already gotten a bunch so why not get a bunch more

Bolding mine: There is none and hasn't been since 3/3/12

SS255

I think that this group makes up the majority of "Current 1K's Who Won't Qualify Under The New Program," and probably the main reason why UA is implementing this policy. Those of us (like myself) who barely graze 100K EQM's, but do it by flying all (or mostly) UA metal may fall a bit under $10K, and we can easily make that up by paying a wee bit closer attention to our fare classes in the future.

Superguy

Great summation! ^

ibuyyoufly

You might have a point there. Otherwise, that comment only addresses GM's and Silver's. Hmmm. I wonder?

tods27

Yes they will. If it is a deeply discounted consolidator fare, you don't get credit. Expedia has to buy those tickets from UA and you will get credit for that (again, assuming it's not a consolidator fare)

That never counted at an individual level, only for those few who United gifted status in order to help seal the contract. If you work for a corporation that has those contracts, you will get credit for the actual $ spent (after the discount). If there is a backend rebate, then you will be better off.

CO_Nonrev_elite

There seems to be a few of you referencing some of the sub 10pcm 1k flyers are not the ones UA cares about. However...

1. Most flyers as we all know are the kettles who just buy what kayak says is cheapest.

2. Airlines fares are generally dictated by the fare classes in blocks of 9

3. The sooner the airline gets from the lower fare class to the higher fare class and starts to get into the higher revenue buckets the better

4. The cheaper fare bucket passenger is still needed to get to the higher fare bucket

5. If the flight does not fill up, then we generally do not get to the Y, B, M fares and as such, the higher revenues.

I know some people go searching for specific fare buckets, but the family kayaker does not

Every ticket contributes to the piece of the pie

DaviddesJ

I'm not sure what you're talking about now. The question was whether they want to incentivize people to take lots of low-dollar mileage runs or mistake fares. Sure, those people aren't competing with me for B/M upgrades. It doesn't cost much to UA for them to have 1K status. But it does cost something to UA to fly them around the country or around the world at very low fares. They would probably rather not have those customers at all.

No, UA can set their fares however they like. They decide how many discount tickets to sell not based on some external force, but based on knowing how many of the higher-fare tickets they will sell under more restrictive guidelines, and then selling the rest at lower prices rather than fly empty seats. If changes result in less demand for low-value fares and the same or slightly higher demand for high-value fares, they can just rebalance the number of seats and fares that they offer to make more money from that new situation.

bloodyeyeballs

More than 1300 posts in a day about this?!?
Maybe I am being too nonchalant as I easily hit 10K spend, but isn't it difficult to fly 100K miles on UA metal without spending 10K?

I mean this comes out to $100 spent per 1000 EQM's flown. With the exception of a few deep discounted international tickets and transcons, I would find it difficult to do 100K miles on less than $10K.

I realize this weeds out some mileage runners and segment runners, but isn't this really a small percentage of those with status?

Disclaimer: I didn't read all 1350 posts, so if this was said and commented on before, please reply with the post numbers.

UrbaneGent

It has to be a limitation because with their own stock, they can get history and see, with another's stock they either are unable or would have to pay $$ to get it. For example, my XXX-YYY flight three months ago didn't post. I think it would be difficult for UA to get access to non-016 stock. This is going to be a big mess.

Tickets are like checks - 016 is Bank of UA, 022 is Bank of Airline X, 093 is Expedia, etc. ACH (Airline Clearing House) acts as a Federal Reserve of sorts (IATA Clearinghouse) for 300+ airlines. It makes sure that if you have three airlines on 016 stock, they each get their $$. All this comes at a cost. I have a feeling that UA can access 016 stock, but for them to have access to another airline's it would either be costly or not possible.

So, either three things:

- UA's system can only read UA 016 stock tickets
- UA doesn't want to fork over the added $$ to get the info to read non-016 tickets
- One airline can't have access to another's ticketing info

Anyone know what is true?

greg99

Aaron -

I will ask a question directly to which many people (including myself) assume we know the answer, but since you have invited us to ask you any questions, I hope you will answer and/or clarify my question.

On its face, the new Premier qualifying dollars program seems like it is an entirely negative change as it relates to the passenger experience. In other words, it appears that while it may result in greater revenues for United, there is no further benefit accruing to Premiers in 2014 as a result of this change.

Could you please confirm whether or not there is any accompanying change to the new PDQ that represents new or improved benefits for Premiers? Many of us would feel much better about this policy if we knew that there was something "in it" for us.

I do hope you'll answer my question, as it truly is intended as a serious inquiry, and one that all of your Premier customers here on FT would, I'm sure, like to know.

Thanks,
Greg

PV_Premier

Let's think about some facts for a moment:

E+ spend is going to be a component of the FF elite earning program.

E+ subscription option was just reintroduced after being axed around the time of the merger.

UA elites are even more addicted to E+ than to upgrades, free bags, or arguably any other UA benefit. E+ is a huge deciding factor in my being a UA elite.

UA sells some fraction of E+ seats for $19-100+ a flight.

In UA's eyes, this means that some (potentially large) fraction of "elites" might pay for E+, maybe not at the same markup as kettles, but at some markup whether it be for an annual subscription. The product is too much better than E- to not pay for it when you are flying that much.

Why would they make E+ spend a part of the FF program if this isn't the route they were going to go? If they indeed plan to keep E+ free for elites, the only people who would benefit from it being a component of elite qualifying are those who are spending almost $2500 and flying over 25k. Then, a couple E+ purchases in that 25k would put you over the top for silver. Presumably, once one earned silver, E+ would still be free at T-24 and the incentive to continue purchasing it is gone.

The writing is on the wall. I am just translating the current set of facts into a logical outcome. By 2015, E+ will not be free at any point certainly for silver, probably for gold, and maybe not for anyone. Not saying it won't come cheaper for elites, but they wouldn't code it into the program if they were not going to leverage it as a hurdle between you and your elite status.

CO_Nonrev_elite

I've not found the above to be the case. I know sometimes they will only offer the higher buckets at first, but generally you can "play around" with it to get the lower buckets especially if the ticket is a round trip or multiple destination ticket

mgcsinc

You're quite a bit confused about how fare buckets work. There are lots of resources out there on the internet, but let me try to explain where you're a bit off.

1. There are no 'blocks of 9'. Q9 just means that somewhere between 9 and infinity seats are available in that fare class.

2. Fare classes are segment-wise (ignoring married segments). Fares, on the other hand, are end-to-end. If you're trying to go one-way NYC-IAH, no matter how you get there, you have to travel in some ungodly high fare class. Doesn't matter if lower buckets are "available." The fares aren't.

3. Fare buckets are nested. When someone buys an N ticket, that can decrease G. There's no need to "go through" the lower fare buckets.

4. Revenue management knows exactly what it's doing. The number of seats in a given fare class is the number of seats UA is willing to sell at that level. If they think they can fill a plane with high-price fares, they'll never release the lower fare classes.

5. Unless something is wrong or were talking about a complicated itinerary, the Kayaker and the super-expert-man-who-knows-how-to-search-for-specific-fare-classes will get the same lowest fare.

waxearwings

This is going to be a bit long and technical but here is the main idea:

I think UA is underestimating the negative impact of the high degree of uncertainty they are introducing into the elite qualifying system.

A good portion of elite flyers know approximately how many miles and how many trips they may take in the coming year, and the likelihood that they will be able to fly them on MP earning carriers. Based on that knowledge, we decide on the feasibility of earning an elite status, and the benefits that status will bring. We then decide, at each booking point, whether the incremental cost of booking on UA or *A over an alternative exceeds that flight's contribution to the goal.

What UA has done here is introduce considerably more uncertainty into a flyer's decision making. Now, in order to calculate the value of flying UA, I must not only estimate how much I will fly in the next year, but the value of the UA-ticketed flights. The key point is this: The less certain I am about the probability of achieving a specific elite level, my cost threshold for booking with a different airline will be [weakly] lower (that is, the threshold might be the same, but no higher).

As a simplified example, suppose I am fairly certain that I will fly 110K miles in the next year. Now, I am booking a 12K trip. I know that if I book away from UA EQM, the 'cost' of doing so is the cost from moving from 1k to Plat (let's call that cost 'C^'). Therefore, if a ticket on AA costs $C less than UA, but C<C^, I will still book on UA. Under the new regime, if I think with probability p<1 that my 110K miles will hit the $10K spend mark, there is a (1-p) chance that the 12K trip will make no difference to my spending goal, and thus my cost threshold for staying with UA decreases from C^ to p*C^.

I gather that UA thinks that the new system will incentive customers to spend more so that they increase p, but I think that effect will be second order, and counteracted more strongly by people booking away from UA earlier in the year. In other words, for those who bother to stick with UA through the year, once their PDQ gap becomes certain, the new rules will induce some to increase their spending to bridge the gap. However, more people won't even get to that point (or will face marginal PDQ bridging at lower overall spending) because the incentive to fly UA from the beginning has decreased.

Note that UA has thought about these issues, as evidenced by the Chase exception. But they could further ameliorate these effects these few ways (and others):

1) Replacing the UA ticket stock rule with something more sensible for TATLs. This would alleviate uncertainty from individuals being unsure how code share flights will be ticketed, and is basically revenue neutral for UA given the revenue sharing agreements.

2) Doing away with the 'taxes don't count' rule. I can see why UA thinks this makes sense--taxes don't go into UA's pocket. But this rule only serves to increase uncertainty about hitting status, as customers are indifferent to a dollar of taxes or fare, and hence do not have a good idea about the portion of each paid. A better idea is for UA to just increase the threshold to, e.g. 11000, and let taxes count.

3) Announce meaningful benefit increases to elite status. This would have the effect of raising the cost threshold C^. I suppose that the award fee increase for non-elites is actually a form of this, and I expect more such 'benefit increases' in the form of non-elite benefit reductions in the coming year.

Even with these tweaks, I'm skeptical that any revenue increases won't be offset by an eroding customer base who know longer sees it in their interest to achieve UA status.

jlivengo

This is an incentive to attract new flyers, and have silver's purchase E+. Nothing more. In no way will they remove E+ for Gold's and higher. Pure paranoia.