CO_Nonrev_elite

Yes, I do, but nothing that I can post on here sorry.

bldr1k

You gotta be kidding. Clearly there are a lot of GS people who buy first class but I normally ask the GS person sitting next to me what he paid and it is almost always cheaper then my ticket. I am going to spend $70,000 on United this year and probably will not be GS.

LAXOGG

If you (as opposed to your company) are going to spend $70,000 on your air travel with UA this year, you could have been awarded GS status through a $50,000 prepaid travel purchase under the PassPlus Flex program for individuals

mduell

Why couldn't his company buy PP for a single person?

sharmaintl

If you spend $70k on UA issued tix (016 stock), flying UA metal, you will most certainly be a GS. NO need to buy PP.

goodeats21

That is not accurate. From a casual familiarity with the GS thread, total spend is not the criteria. If the $70K is not in the right fare buckets, GS isn't reached. And 016 ticket is not really key either. $100K on 016 tickets, but flying mostly LH and ANA isn't going to yield GS either.

GS earned by flying is about non-discount fare in premium cabins.

I don't begrudge GS their perks. Not by a long shot. But I do evaluate 1k benefits versus my spend and competing programs. With $10K last year and $12K this year, at some point United has to determine that 1Ks are valuable again and start treating us accordingly.

And I will be WELL over $12K by years end with just 100k miles. There are plenty of non-marginal 1ks out there...

mduell

$12k in deep discount fares isn't doing UA any big favors.

The differentiation point is when you're hitting ~$40k full fare.

Baze

Last year I was over $16K with 83K miles. This year will be well over $12K with somewhere around 75-80K miles for Platinum again. Who is more valuable $ wise? You or me? Yet as a 1K you will get many more benefits than I will.

Darlox

Ha! I'm afraid I have to call "wishful thinking" on this one.

When miles/status were non-revenue based, there was a "UA vs. Competition" decision that took place, and 1Ks became 1Ks via a loyalty-derived decision making process.

Now that miles/status are revenue-based, and ticket prices do not necessarily track actual cost/distance of flights, it's a completely different decision-making process. Now choosing UA isn't enough. You have to buy higher fare classes, or otherwise make choices to NOT necessarily buy the cheapest ticket available on UA. (Or, frankly, get lucky... next major downturn in the economy, fares will go down again, and plenty of people whose flying patterns don't decrease will still suddenly not make the bar.)

This is a dramatic shift in the calculus, as discussed elsewhere. UA is effectively saying that only frequent fliers with certain high-revenue activity patterns, or those who choose to act irrationally (or depending on your company, potentially unethically), will clear the bar.

NOTHING about that shift implies that UA can, should or will value fliers any more heavily than they do now. As has been reiterated before, if you're spending that much $$ on baseline tickets, you don't need most of the perks offered by status. This is a strategic draw-down of loyalty programs, to slowly accustom customers to paying for every perk, and not noticing how much incremental cash they're now hemorrhaging for them. It will soon be cheaper (if it isn't already!) to buy a TOD on every flight, than to shoot for 1K and hope for a CPU.

If you're waiting for UA or DL programs to become more lucrative over time, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya...

iflyuaaa

agree. some here seem to think that as the spend for 1k goes up, the loyalty perks will magically reappear. or when the next downturn comes, they will magically start to value loyalty. it aint happening folks. they will only reward loyalty of high margin dollars...not high mile fliers, not high dollar spenders. only high margin dollar spenders. when the economy tanks, they will not fill the planes by increasing 1k perks. they will fill the planes by selling really cheap tickets. their view is very clear: to fill seats, they discount price and no need to give a bunch of perks to go with that. doesn't matter if it's a good or bad economy, just in a bad economy, the price will probably be lower. but their spreadsheet math says, they will have to discount the price a lot anyway, so no need to add additional perks on top of it.

transportbiz

Could be true, but DL, and AA and all the others will drop prices too...so, how do you fill more of your seats than they fill theirs? Price will always be a level playing field. That's really how this whole FFP animal started.

The idea that seats can be controlled by these airlines indefinitely is also a bit of a fantasy. If there's really money to be made ANYWHERE more people will show up to take a share. B6, VX, WN can and will expand.

What's the strategy? Never ending consolidation? You'll never keep up, and after this last round, DOJ is going to be much more involved. FFP did what they were intended to do for a long time, drive irrational behavior to keep customers in the fold. Make a connecting flight instead of a direct one because you wanted your benefits and miles.

The experiment UA and DL are conducting is to see exactly how irrational people will be. Not only will they take the less efficient connection flight, but will they also pay a lot more than they need to...that experiment will eventually fail, they may indeed get their wish and SkyMiles and MileagePlus will cease to exist. United and Delta will be left to fight for every customer on every flight to fill every seat. WN will have it's body of loyal flyers, as will VX and B6...AA if they are smart will too.

The next economic downturn, that is coupled with $100 oil will be the real shake out.

pdx1M

The whole reason for creating FF programs was to create brand preference in what was otherwise largely a commodity market. It wasn't to be "nice" to customers for the sake of some general notion of goodness. Right now the airlines are in an historically good time with flights running near capacity and cheap oil. They can price pretty high with no particular brand preference. If and when this goldilocks period ends (and it most probably will) the airlines will once again be in a commodity business. The history of the business is that they can't make consistent profit in a purely price driven commodity situation. One or more of the big three will realize that brand value matters at that point. There are only a few ways to get that value. One is to deliver the best service. DL and AA seem to be headed that way at the moment. Another is to deliver perqs via a FF program that has some customer value. AA is still there at the moment. UA's problem is that their service reputation at this point stinks and they have taken the DL approach to their FF program. So when they actually have to compete to fill seats *profitably* in an economic downturn with excess capacity they are currently the least well positioned to do so. Perhaps they will be able to pivot quickly but I don't really see how. Just saying they will fill seats by dropping price may be true but that won't deliver profit - in fact just the opposite it will deliver pretty large losses. DL will still have folks willing to pay somewhat of a premium for good service and AA will still have folks willing to pay somewhat of a premium for decent to good service and a pretty decent FF program attracting elites. What UA's magic bullet will be is beyond my understanding.

bldr1k

Because my company is incredibly cheap and short-sighted when it comes to travel.

bldr1k

50K didn't get me it the last few years.

Maybe 70K will but it isn't guaranteed since I will still be about 25 cents a mile.

iflyuaaa

you may be right, you may be wrong, but ua's belief is that price alone is what drives majority of their traffic. so if you share that belief, then cutting benefits is the logical thing to do - save cost, cut price. this board is full of the 10% (or less) of people who do irrational things for miles. and as evidenced by numerous posts, those people are not profitable to UA. so UA is not firing them, but simply saying if you want to fly my airline at 3c/mile, great, we will take you, but we're not going to upgrade you, give you bonus miles, a free bag etc.

if you ask the majority of kayakers, they choose based on price. so if that's how they will decide, then all the airlines see no need to pay for brand loyalty - it's just money wasted.

and yes - consolidation will live on forever. that has been the trend since foever. new airlines will come and eventually will be merged. AA is made of what, like 10 mergers? UA probably something similar? (i have no idea, just guessing). even wn is made up of a merger. more will come, megers will happen, the cycle will continue.

the one thing we do know - the model of yesterday didn't work. that's why airlines were never long term profitable. maybe jeffy's way will work. believe me, i hope he's wrong. i can't imagine i'll be in the 30-40c/mile category forever and my historical pattern is closer to 3c/mile. at that time, i will become a kayaker but at least i'll have whatever lifetime benefits 1mm on ua and 2mm on aa get. but that will be the point when my exp and 1k status end. hopefully if our company doesn't change it's policies, i can at least keep both of those for the next few years. ironically, i'd probably make GS next year if i put everything on UA, but since they dont publish a requirement, i don't want to give up EXP. I expect to spend $45k-$55k next year total flying roughly 125k BIS all international business (but P fares which i'm not sure jeffy values that much). all on UA and hope for GS or split exactly evenly and get 1k and EXP. i'm doing the latter