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Originally Posted by Boghopper
(Post 35908488)
in United’s shoes I could see that participants in corporate discount programs are already costing money, so why give more benefits if it’s a captive program? The benefits are going to the company rather than the enployee, but that’s a labor/morale issue.
I think once the tantrums wear off there will be a regression to actual rational self interest. Many will flying UA so much to stretch to GS but many will return because the routes make sense. And anybody flying on international business class tickets gets a miles bonanza that’s unmatched by foreign carriers. Every trip is 50-150k miles. All those who claim they will switch to foreign carriers are walking away from that. And those in UA Hubs who switch to AA or Delta will be in for a rude surprise when irrops arise. Time to wait line for a voucher for a crappy hotel and crappier meal. The trouble and strife requalified with about 56k but almost all intl business class with no corporate discount program. Even if she gets demoted in a future year we will probably stick with UA, but will consider AA. Not delta, their miles seem almost useless. |
Originally Posted by Boghopper
(Post 35908488)
And anybody flying on international business class tickets gets a miles bonanza that’s unmatched by foreign carriers. Every trip is 50-150k miles.
I'm not sure if DL or AA has similar caps in place. |
Originally Posted by Doppy
(Post 35908629)
It's only >75k if you're flying on separate tickets thanks to the earning cap. But flying on separate international tickets is often substantially more expensive and if you're doing that just to maximize miles at the cost of your company's money, that seems pretty fraudulent to me, even though I'm sure a lot of people could "get away with it."
I'm not sure if DL or AA has similar caps in place. That said, it’s not that hard to get around. Just change your return date mid trip by a day and then change it back and you get a new ticket number and a reset on the 75k. It’s frequently free to do this in the no change fee era. I have done that many times. |
Dropped to 1k as well
I saw the earlier post that most of the responses are from a small number of people…add me to the list
I’ve been GS since the merger after being co-Star for the decade prior (for those who still remember that program). Dropped after a $45k spend year which is fine…if UA wants to ignore 20 years of loyalty. I’m over 2.5m and trying to decide “free agency” versus going for 3m and likely a run towards 4m over the next decade. hell of a way to turn me off to UA at this point when I’m comfortably still spending a lot of money and influencing quite a bit more |
So this is how UA tries to handle the overcrowding in the UA Clubs...
Instead of UA rolling back their 2021 change where GS were given Club access on all itineraries, they are going to severely thin the ranks of GS so there are fewer Club entries. Got it. -RM |
Originally Posted by Rock214
(Post 35907884)
. . . So while this issue may not directly impact a vast majority of United customers, or even Flyertalk members, or even GS members on Flyertalk, it should generate red flags for all. Business is business and service quality in the airline industry seems to run on a sine wave. Long term United customers can certainly recall some high periods and low periods in United service. If your life as a United customer is currently comfortable, stand by. It appears United is in the process of revising its business model. Maybe that means service will improve for most United customers. There could be real genius in the strategy revealed in part by their obvious shift in the GS program. Or, this could be United’s version of New Coke. Time will tell.
If these changes to those who had GS status are deliberate, it’s at best confusing. If it’s successful, it doesn’t portend well for those with 1k status and lower. I’m in the camp that expects everything to be walked back on Tuesday. United did a Delta and can get free air time with the apology/explanation. The lesson that United will learn isn’t that what they did was wrong, but it was in how they did it. They should have stratified the space between 1k ($24,000 in spend) and $50 or $75k: creating a level where you could, say, upgrade into PN, pre board with GS, upgrade on rewards, etc. They’ll try again. The bigger signal is that the entire “loyalty” program will be revamped: Delta wants to do it and now United does too. |
Originally Posted by villox
(Post 35908625)
corporate discount person here. I direct a lot of my personal travel toward United because of the GS benefits. That includes buying more expensive tickets than I would otherwise. I’m not captive with this spend.
I seem to remember the conventional wisdom used to be that the 50k cap was only such spending, but not heard that recently. Maybe United is returning to this, which would explain demotion of some of the high spenders who also have tons of segments. The wife hit 50k or so pqp in four trips, out and back. No mystery whether that’s profitable. |
Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
(Post 35908099)
In today's world, that is just too slow. While many will not notice until they don't have GS status, this appears to have created a grass roots communication wild fire. This is UA's DL moment and time is of the essence to address, the first rule of crisis management. Waiting another two weeks to address is tooooooooooo late, the damage will have been done even if corrected. And don't leave it to front line employee's to manage in the meantime..
If there’s any silver lining, management classes will have an excellent example of what not to do in the service industry. First Delta did it with their FF program; United followed suit and picked on high revenue customers, but waited until (i) the fiscal year for many of those customers began and (ii) the DOT announced that it would scrutinize frequent flyer programs. Delta: how to start a fire; United: how to start a bigger fire! I must say, I love the airline industry. It’s throughly entertaining: the IFE has nothing on this OFE. |
Originally Posted by ironmanjt
(Post 35908524)
Are you implying your company that (assuming they each did 100k+ which seems to be the outrage threshold where we can't believe it happened in this thread) had 80+ former GS with huge numbers that all lost it? You've communicated to them all about this? That just seems....like it could only be an error on UA's part and no way they would have risked/done this intentionally.
At my company, the travel agency does not receive an allotment of status categories to divvy out to employees. We don’t even have to provide our airline specific mileage account numbers. And there is no restriction on which airline we make reservations with. We can do it ourselves on a website. If we spend more than our allocated budget allowance, it is deducted from our paycheck for that month. That’s about the limit of the company control. I should add that the company will schedule travel for you. You can accept it or change it. For January the company scheduled me to fly on Delta, Air France, American Airlines, Emirates, United, JAL and Singapore Airlines. In the past, where possible I would keep the United flights and reschedule the others onto United. |
Originally Posted by RobOnLI
(Post 35908729)
So this is how UA tries to handle the overcrowding in the UA Clubs...
Instead of UA rolling back their 2021 change where GS were given Club access on all itineraries, they are going to severely thin the ranks of GS so there are fewer Club entries. Got it. Pretty sure eliminating people from GS just to solve overcrowding in clubs will do absolutely nothing to help. |
Originally Posted by Rock214
(Post 35908773)
In the last few days, one of my colleagues compiled a list of over 100 employees who had all been GS in 2023 with an average PQP of almost 80K. Each employee provided their specific end of the year numbers and Mileage plus account number. None have been renewed as GS in 2024.
At my company, the travel agency does not receive an allotment of status categories to divvy out to employees. We don’t even have to provide our airline specific mileage account numbers. And there is no restriction on which airline we make reservations with. We can do it ourselves on a website. If we spend more than our allocated budget allowance, it is deducted from our paycheck for that month. That’s about the limit of the company control. |
Originally Posted by Rock214
(Post 35908773)
...If we spend more than our allocated budget allowance, it is deducted from our paycheck for that month...
When I was working for The Largest Intergrated U.S. Domestic Oil Company, if our budget looked to be blown, we'd ask for supplement and it would be granted if explainable and/or necessary. Stuff changes (fares, projects, etc). |
Originally Posted by scubadu
(Post 35908253)
I'm sorry, and with all due respect, I think this is pretty hyperbolic. As of the moment I'm writing this, ~30% of the posts in this thread are literally from 10 (yes, 10) posters (~32% if you expand to the top 11 posters) whom are mostly saying the same thing over and over. Furthermore, some of the GS folks participating in the thread simply purchased GS through Pass Plus and aren't even impacted. I'd hardly classify that as a "wildfire" (or a crisis). I've seen literally no mention of this outside FT (or even this thread).
We’ll not know the true scale of this issue for the next few days: if it isn’t walked back soon and publicly, I was wrong. United has much more power over its customer base than I thought or that I believe is healthy. |
PQP: 65K.
PQF: 59 Was downgraded from GS to 1K. Had account "under review" since Friday and called MP today for update. Learned that given my company has a corporate account with United, I needed to work with our travel department. This is first indication I had that it's possible those with corporate contracts with United might have been impacted by how the account is reviewed for GS, but I'm just speculating. I explained a certain % of my spend was not under our corporate account and was personal. MP person said to 1) write letter to mileage plus and explain that 2) call back by end of January for another update 3) work with our corporate team on this. The MP person was nice, but was just as surprised at the downgrade and did comment they are have lots of calls on downgrades. Implied some type of review of the process was underway. Interesting guidance. Anyone else getting the same from MP? |
Originally Posted by greenpa
(Post 35908516)
In the congratulations email United sent out this week, there is a personalized video link attached. In the video they call out “Your United spend” which exactly matched my own tracker - would be interesting to see for others if there was any discrepancy. This is the first time I’ve ever had my “UA metal” number played back to me from the company.
As an aside, I also see two deductions on the same day for the same amount (- 299) for "Cancel non air" -- no idea what that is. |
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