HatAndJacket

tell me more please I'm considering

^ that's what I'm hoping for B6

Lurker1999

I think this is a good year to start moving to Kayak. Since everything is for sale in one form or another, why not fly on schedule and acknowledge the new reality that frequent flyer programs are going to evolve just as every other part of the air travel experience has?

Expedited security: Global Entry/Pre-check
Expedited boarding: "Elite" status, credit card or pay per flight
Baggage allowance: "Elite" status, credit card or pay per flight
E+/premium economy: "Elite" status or pay per flight
Domestic first class: "Elite" upgrades or pay per flight
Meal: To-go bag from the airport, buy on board/pre-order/sit in FC (but only during the right times of the day!)
International premium cabins: Pay by miles, instruments or per flight

The only real benefit you can't buy your way into is a better stand-by position for involuntary reroutings.

zombietooth

Remember, when you are buying miles, you receive nothing of value in addition to the miles. When you fly to earn, it is presumed that the majority of the value is in the actual flight itself, so the awarded miles could only be considered a rebate on your cost.

So, no, the IRS couldn't reasonably use the value people pay on points.com to tax you on. They would have to use the more predictable value of a rebate model.

This change, if adopted by all of the majors, is something that they haven't seen before and could easily bring new attention.

imgonnafly

how do you figure? you currently earn 250k RDM on your 17k spend. now you'll earn less than 200k RDM. it hurts you and you're not a cheap traveler!

Fyd

First, yes, Smisek will follow... Eventually... The constraint will be to change their ancient (ex-CO) IT systems...
The only reason I, as an SFO captive, chose UA over VX for domestic and over LH/TG/SQ for international was their program. With this, only domestic short-haul, last minute, high-priced tickets make sense.
So why bother flying a crappy carrier with now a crappy program?
I'll just buy the best flight for the money, use a good award card like Chase Sapphire or Barclays Arrival - and forget about the "loyalty" programs,
And any corporate travel manager worth their pay will clamp down on last-minute purchases REALLY hard now, if they didn't already...

JNelson113

That's it in a nutshell. Sure, the super HVFers will like this, but do the airlines really have enough of them to alienate the middle tier? They are going to have to compete like crazy on price if people no longer have any reason for loyalty because of this.

mduell

I'm not sure what market/industry you're in, but in Houston with the energy biz there's plenty of staff spending more on airfare than they make in salary. RDM are not the last of their worries.

The 75k max is easy to circumvent buying multiple one way tickets if you're looking at tickets that expensive.

Wise-Broccoli8301

Revenue might be better for me if they allow *A partner flights to count... considering with PQD I have only $108 right now because I refuse to be served dog food on a UA transpacific flight. Like just today I was playing around with NH vs UA tickets, and I'd much rather stop in Tokyo than to be stuffed on one of the old UA 744s.

With that said I need to be looking heavily at the UA Chase CC this year to keep *A Gold.

villox

So what, you think the IRS is going to come up with some formula, that varies for every single airline program in the world btw, that also takes account for who paid for each ticket (cause surely if I paid for the ticket I won't be taxed on this "rebate") and then start asking us to fill out income tax forms for them?

I think not.

zombietooth

Plenty of money in the oil biz right now!

My nephew works in the Bakken. He got out of the Army as an E-4 (with no oil field experience). He now makes 150k per year after 4 years there and his company spent around 75k flying him around the US last year, usually at the last minute.

I will say though, that he hasn't had any chance to go on vacation in the last 2 years because they are just too busy. So, in his case, RDM have proven useless to him up to this point.

AAExPlat

I work in Finance. I have friends who work at Apple, IBM, Citi etc and in most of those companies, if you travel on those kinds of fares, you are a really BIG hitter. And I really mean big. There will always be one industry where the going is so good that expenses don't matter, but that won't last forever either. Even at Citi, the most senior managers now have to fly Y for flights of 3 hours or less. One of my friends who works for IBM flew to USA-SIN in the back of the bus as a senior sales manager of a really large product category. What you speak of may be common in Houston, but not all that common on average.

johnsmith

so I'm pretty confused on what delta is doing here between redeemable miles and status qualification. They are going to print a bunch of miles for high rev fliers (whether short or long haul), but this doesn't fix the benefits for the short haul flier because they don't get status any quicker under this plan

why wouldn't they allow status for spend without as much of a BIS requirement?

LaserSailor

You are focussing on big biz, which treats everyone outside the C suite crappy.

The vast majority of jobs are in SMBE which compete for talent, very successfully, with quality of life things like travel policies.

I'm not trying to turn is into a career board discussion but don't think the big guys set the market standard.

mduell

The most out of whack I know of is a $40k/yr project coordinator who spends about $60k/yr on airfare IAH-SIN.

bocastephen

Indeed - paid premium cabin travel is far more rare these days. Over the years I've informally observed who is in the F cabin with me in seats not appearing as "cleared" on the upgrade list, and thus either there on a paid fare or with a mileage ticket. The majority are mileage tickets (usually picked out by vacation attire or baggage, ie boxes of rum, coconuts, shopping bags, etc) or small business owners, doctors and attorneys - usually identified by their luggage ID tag or whatever they're working on with their laptop.

I can't recall the last time I noticed a corporate type up front without their name on the upgrade cleared list.

My consulting group has a strict policy on lowest fare, always booked through the online booking engine. No one flies up front overseas without Sr Director or VP approval PLUS customer approval (since the customer will end up paying for the ticket).

The road warriors will suffer the most, and these are the people that won't push back on DL or UA or AA as much as their own employers - the tide will turn where consulting companies and other frequent travel businesses will recruit young grads to do most of the travel understanding they will lose these people as the travel-without-reward cycle wears thin and it will be harder to retain experienced people.

Within this community, please raise your hand if you're a frequent traveler as part of your job and you would gladly continue work travel if your RDM earnings were slashed by 50-70% and your options for redeeming free tickets for vacations and other benefits like upgrades were significantly reduced - in essence you spent all this time traveling, including weekends and evenings, your personal time, and receive no benefit for doing so. Would you continue traveling as-is, attempt to reduce travel at your current position, or begin looking for a new position with little to no mandatory travel?