UAflyer93

BearX220

I would not be super concerned. The super-premium card category is only getting more competitive. CSR goes up against Amex Plat & Aspire, Citi Prestige, MC Black Card, and judging from a survey I took the other day, Capital One may soon launch an entry of their own.

As airline miles become more of a suspect / faithless currency, consumers will migrate to alternative rewards and the category will remain full of strong offerings,.

J.Edward

Moderator Note - poll added to thread. Did the best I could with the limited selection & text. Poll closes DEC 24 2019.

entropy

The FFP's are killing the golden goose. Now they're going to be rewarding people for flying again, just at lower rates.

The "saver" award (and CHART) which was the mainstay of how people earned aspirational awards is gone, so people are left with a rebate. When people spent money on their cards, they saw their dream trip to disney/mexico/hawaii/.europe, and that drove people to spend more, and more on that card. If UA miles are worth 1c or 1.1c or whatever, fine. But people will start making choices on that basis, like dropping their credit card when they can earn more/better elsewhere. ESPECIALLY elites who don't need most of the ancillary bennies that are duplicative of what they get.

2% Cash looks a lot better than an explorer card. And yes, the Chase native cards are BETTER than united. I'm mostly int'l, I get the lounge such as it is, anyways. Ink unlimited is 1.5 UR, which is >= the club card. THE CSR is better than the united cards period.

And I don't see what incentive chase has to renegotiate a deal with United when they have 6 years left on this one and United's done nothing but sharply devalue their program.

bocastephen

At a very high level, his job is to create a comprehensive product and customer experience, along with third party partnerships, which create a useful, desirable ecosystem for customers to focus their spending and build brand relationships, all while ensuring employees are motivated, positive and fully in-tune with the goals of the brand and the day to day operations.

Gordon Bethune and Herb Kelleher were pretty good at recognizing their jobs and carrying them out in a successful manner - Kirby, not so much (by a long shot). Delta seems to get it, at least on the product side, which is why they can ask for better margins. United's spending demands are like Walmart asking me to pay the same price for a shirt that I would pay in Nordstrom, as if quality and service were irrelevant.

Running a successful service business is not about squeezing every dollar to reward shareholders - who, by the way, don't see any of these dollars - a successful service business is run by focusing on customers, employees and products, which sometimes means trading margins from time to time, to boost brand recognition, revenue, loyalty and market share.

For credit cards, I've kept the PP card as it includes primary car rental insurance along with the club membership - my perception of the product is I am paying $450 for primary car rental insurance per year (I rent cars 300+ days a year, so this feature has value) with a bonus club membership thrown in. Nothing else about the card is really useful, and my non-UA spending goes to my Amex card, where the value and return are vastly higher. In a nutshell, I "transfer" Amex Points to UA Miles by using some of my Amex points to pay the difference in price between cheap coach and cheap first, and then Amex gives me 35% of those points back....so the net net is for about the same as a domestic UA mileage upgrade award, which everyone knows is impossible to redeem, I am confirmed in F, and then receive UA miles x 150% for the trip. Everyone needs to be a savvy customer (that's why we have Flyertalk) and work the system to their own personal advantage.

WineCountryUA

I have decided to go the cashback route partially drive by some unique circumstances
-- Will maintain the Club Card but limit usage to maintain PQD waiver + UC access as I do mostly domestic flying
-- Bulk of spend will be on BofA card with 2.6%/3.5% cashback (due to having a Merrill Lynch account)

So my Chase spend is down significantly but not gone - but the PQD waiver is of value to me.

While miles can sometimes achieve create better cash equivalent returns, the cashback is significantly strong and more certain.

I still have a significant number of miles to burn and will continue to earn some from flying and the Club Card -- don't see a mileage issue for me for 3-4 years, we'll see what the landscape is then.

8MiHi

I have taken advantage of multiple CC holder discounts on award travel for family members and am hopeful that this will expand in the future.
My PP card still gives FPQMs and has a PQD waiver up to Platinum, so I can keep that status even in the occasional year that I fall short.
We are in an era of high utilization of air travel and the perks that used to have a low marginal cost to the airline are now much more valuable.
I can see that my perks have been diminished and that my RDMs have not been quite as valuable as they used to be. But I still get enough to make sticking with my card worthwhile.

MikeW_ORD

I have both the UA Explorer and the CSR and plan on keeping the UA card at least for the near future. Now that I have the WN Companion Pass I fly them much more than UA out of Chicago, but I still use UA for some international travel and random trips outside of the WN network. The main reasons I keep the UA card are that the 2 club passes essentially cover the annual fee for me, and having the ability to book economy seats/perks at basic economy prices has come in handy a few times. But outside of that, I never put any spend on the UA card. If I don't anticipate any quick trips that I can book using basic economy prices in the near future, then I'll probably cancel the card.

worldwidedreamer

Chase gave my a free WN CP in 2018, and I'm now totally hooked. Disregarding points earned with spend, the CP saves me $3,000/year or more. Now that UA is moving to a points/$ ratio, I don't really see the value in holding Mileage Plus Points. Plus I love that WN is consistent to a fault; United seems to be a different experience every flight from truly amazing to "truly amazing". As a FTer I have a better understanding of what to expect, but it still can be quite dissonant. Brief example: SFO-Asia flights always have green tea; SFO-Europe flights have just black tea. Of course, the domestic connections most likely lack both.

s0ssos

I wonder if one can only accept one card. Costco obviously has tried, but they take all Visas, not just the Costco visa.

windhund

UA (and DL and AA) all got themselves into this situation - they sold miles as a great way to get free trips, pushed credit cards and big signups with that promise, and now that the supply of miles has grown significantly, the cost of actually using them for trips has finally increased accordingly. The occasional deal is still out there, but for many people (at least those who don't have super flexible schedules and have to plan trips well in advance), it's become pretty difficult to use miles for anything greater than $0.01/mile. WN/B6 offer a better value for their points for the time being; I'd personally been accumulating UR points for their flexibility, and I can always redeem them for cash. Miles, OTOH, have become a rapidly depreciating currency.

If UA wants me to accumulate miles, it has to offer value for them. But UA wants me to redeem them for $0.01/mile or less - and in that case, a regular cashback card is a far better proposition.

jsloan

No; it's a violation of the various cards' merchant agreements.

VegasGambler

They can just increase the discount for using their card from 25% to 99% and increase their prices accordingly. If you really want to pay $750 for a beer you can use whatever card you want.

findark

Well, you could only accept your own card if it isn't issued on a network (Visa/MC/etc). The problem is then your card wouldn't be good anywhere else (like a store card). Not sure what the original plan was here.

s0ssos

I don't mean agreement wise. I mean, technologically possible?