fastair

I am not privy to the contract of Accenture, nor any other corporation, and if I was, I would not be at liberty to discuss it, but most likely things like this are just that, contracts.

A promise for XX% of business, or XX$ in travel, and it make come with other benefits and or restrictions. A loose group of individuals united under a common theme do not have the same legal/financial weight, and one person's desire to test the waters doesn't guarantee future revenue.

One could buy a passplus or equivalent type program, where in effect, one guarantees revenue up front in exchange for certain benefits, but the contracts are usually written by the airline, and agreed or rejected by the individual. Similarly a challenge may require an up front fee, and certain revenue or usage goals, as determined by the airline in order to be granted status without doing the normal required work to obtain it. If one fails, the airline keeps the challenge fee, so it is a win/win for them.

A coalition of individuals doesn't have the same weight/clout as a bound corporation's travel dept, and as such, will not be able to negotiate the same levels of perks in exchange for their travel budget. Contracts > promises. The penalty for a corporation reneging can be long term increased costs, known penalties, or lack of bargaining power with all airlines in the future. The penalty for a coalition or an individual not fulfilling their promises are pretty much nothing, so an airline would head the phrase "caveat emptor" when they are the buyer of your individual/collective travel loyalty. Airlines, as well as many companies are very competitive. A stone thrown by one at a big competitor may result in a bigger stone being thrown back. In a war, there are always more losers than winners. A company should think about that before trying to poach from a bigger adversary in a noticeable way.

StarAllianceFanatic

Understand your point, but how does it benefit the individual traveler who earns 1K the hard way of EQM or the REALLY hard way of EQS to have a bunch of people given status the easy way (by way of their employer)? UA could have given Accenture the same contract and same discount for all employees without giving a large block 1K status. Such actions are a detriment to all the other 1K's that earned that status says an earlier poster in this thread. My question is if UA does it, why shouldn't AA. Further, I have no problem personally going to another airline on a challenge. None. Loyalty is supposed to be a 2-way street and I am more than happy to hold up my end of the bargain.

I joined PassPlus in late June of this year. This was a trial run with the thought that if I liked the program I was going to sign on with a significant commitment. I am already pretty far into talks with several carriers on a corporate agreement to replace Passplus all because the actions and blunders by UA related to elite benefits, elite qualifications, proliferation of express flights that should be mainline, and annoying GS members like myself with an absolutely ridiculous renewal process. When businesses stop looking out for the customers, act cocky, say one thing and do another why exactly should we continue to patronize that business? United has gone completely tone deaf to the customer in the last three months in my opinion and the opinion of my team. If that continues, they won't be the biggest for long.

eponymous_coward

I tend to think FF programs impact the cost structure. CO/DL have ones that were (previous to UA's UDU) seemingly more generous ("Hey! You get unlimited* free* first class upgrades in the US!") while really giving away things they couldn't sell (F cabins that are mostly poor shadows of 20 years ago) and being stingier on things they could sell (international J cabins). UA is becoming more aligned with CO, obviously, though I tend to think they won't water things down too much without riots happening (I suspect they'll keep E+, SWUs, and a limited number of CR1s- in other words, what we see now is about what we'll see going forward for the foreseeable future.)

It will be interesting to see if AA holds out on keeping domestic F very exclusive (comps to EXP only, instruments to everyone else). I would not be sanguine about this: for one thing, their current setup is basically oriented towards mileage running: eVIPs work on any fare, F upgrades do not really account for fare class. It's a great system if you can take advantage of it. I just wonder if that will continue or if AA will decide there are ways to change their system that would maximize their revenue... and basically tell FTers "if you don't like it, go fly DL, US or CO".

AstroAcks6

I'm in!!! Please keep us updated

Also, as an Accenture employee, I can tell you that no such "contract" exists that gives us all 1K. I earned mine the hard way

StarAllianceFanatic

Maybe it was IBM. Not sure how to put a link to a specific post in but check out post #37 of this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...l#post10087122

izzik

I suspect that was a status match instead of just free elite status.

WineCountryUA

Kind-of shows the problems with my third cousin heard from his next-door neighbor's MIL sources.
best not to cite as certainties

Grace B

Yes, they're more concerned about keeping their jobs than helping customers (but that's natural under the circumstances).

I don't think you'll see any life in UA (CO) until the second half of 2012.

ma91pmh

I worked for a large Swiss bank (there are only two so take your pick you've got a 50/50 chance of being right) with a huge travel budget particularly on the LHR-NYC route. I've been on those flights and seen as many as a dozen co-workers in J with one or two in F to boot. They never, ever gave out free status. I saw recently SPG offered a status match which looked more generous than their default status match program. That's it.

If AA genuinely end up giving a handful of peeved of FT UAers EXP match, I will be complaining vociferously.

FWAAA

Rumours were that Deloitte arranged status matches on AA and/or DL when it dropped UA as a preferred carrier:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...iscussion.html

StarAllianceFanatic

You mean everything on here isn't fact! Actually, I have many friends who work for IBM GS and it was confirmed that many, but not all, of them were given 1K status even though it was not earned. Some of them were loyal to AA, CO and DL and tried UA but most have drifted back to the others.

Bulldog83

Random thought -- would people consider taking the EXP match without the 8 evips? Unless AA was desperate for business, it wouldn't seem to make a lot of sense to hand out upgrade instruments valid on any fare to someone who has made no financial commitment.

FriendlySkies

Perhaps AA would do the match to EXP, as long as we flew a certain amount within 90 days. Maybe 30K in 90 days? If you don't get the 30K, they they only give you gold..

JeffS

Which is most likely what would happen should this fantasy of comp to EXP come true, and excatly why AA won't do it.

6am at ORD

Accenture was United's third best customer. They used that to get C level meetings, not 1K status.