Ayn Rand clearly advocated acting in one's rational self interest. By offering the Double EQM promo, United increases its revenues and profits, so it is in its self interest to do the promotion.

I think you could argue, effectively even, against the DEQM without invoking a simplistic hack writer ;)

Sorry you don't like Ms Rand. Name-calling people who promote ideas which you don't like doesn't score many points, however.

well, most people around here value a SWU at about $600. I'm sure UA values them more than that, as they are giving away $3000 Z fare seats for $800-900 dollars plus 2 swu. If 10,000 people paying for deqm, turned into 60,000 swu's @ $600 per swu thats $36 million plus the loss of all the revenue from the biz seats that they would sell. I think they are planning "selling" the new reconfigured seats at a profit. with a large marketing campaign touting how great the new service is. If that starts working and it is INDEED very nice: dont be surprised if they put the refit crews on OT and start cranking out the new refits in much shorter time. Then they wont have to entice people with DEQM promos to make up for the rather shabby old biz seats.

(Bolding mine) Sorry but I strongly disagree. United controls how many seats are offered for upgraders. Only seats which are not going to be sold are released as award/upgrade inventory. Moreover, even if one ignores this, the cost to United to transport you in a C seat is less than $3000 - the price at which United sells the seats to the public is irrelevant to their internal profit calculations.

Also, the very cheapest classes are not available for upgrades with SWUs, so every time someones buys a higher fare because it qualifies for an upgrade that's also extra revenue for United. Moreover, the whole point of status is that if you have it you fly more the following year. Enticing people to become 1K, through the DEQM or any other means, encourages loyalty, and I'm sure this is one of the main points of the DEQM, not so much the revenue obtained from the registrations.


Here we agree. The reduction in capacity and the improvement in service will lead to scarcer upgrades and awards, so United may want to limit the number of 1Ks this time around. But as others have said, the rollout will take a few years, and the impact in 2008 will still be relatively small.

I agree ^

Number of 1Ks and FF Statements from Other Airlines
 

I was recently chatting with an FA on a flight who had told me that one of UAs internal matricies for success is the number of 1Ks they have in the program, and that there had been a significant drop in the past decade, which was likely why they offered the DEQM promos. I wonder though what impact the EQMs for statements from other FF programs has on their research - if they find that once somebody reaches top tier status if they try to reach other levels on different airlines, which would indicate that they may have a dis-incentive for long-term financial gains. However, if research showed that a significant amount of 1Ps maintain other mid-level elite status, where as 1Ks are significantly more loyal, that would be a good indication that they would want to offer it again. We can all agree that their are definite short-term gains, but I wonder how much of an impact the long-term financial projections have on their desire to offer the promotion.

maintaining loyalty is a two way street. It's hard to maintain 1K status, like 8000+ bis miles a month. I'm well aware of RM and so are most 1K flyers. BUT and its a big BUT. Most of us dont want to use SWUs as a last minute game of chance. We want to find seats that are avail and confirmable ahead of time. I have a feeling these will become harder to use in the next 1-2 yrs. So then the big question is "why work at 1k, when 1P isn't really that bad and is only 50K if you get my drift

Isnt the agony of waiting just excruciating! Ahhhg!

Me too. My signature says it all!

You are quite logical in your analysis. The best type of customer is a loyal customer. I think that United must have raised substantial funds with the promo from $7.5 to $15 Million from the Double EQM offer last year. The low end number assumes 5000 people enrollled in the promo at $500 and buying $1000 worth of tickets, and the high end estimate is based on 10,000 enrollments.

Wirelessly posted (TMobile DASH: BlackBerry7230/4.0.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Speculation aside, I'm getting ready to spring for a Y fare to Narita to get me back in the 1K hunt. ;)

We do? :confused:

This post is pure rumor and I have no data or conversations with "knowledgeable" CSRs or others who work for United...BUT...

What if UA is holding off on announcing this promotion because they're making changes to the frequent flyer minimum EQM levels? I'm not saying the 25K/50K/100K EQM levels are going away, but what if they change? What if they become 25K/75K/150K? or 30K/60K/120K? Or something just as strange? Or maybe come up with a fourth level (no, not 3P status) and leaving th original levels as is to have something like 25K/50K/100K/200K?

It would make sense to do something like that if UA indeed wants to focus on the Business Traveler and, more specifically, the international business traveler?

Just rumor. Flame away.

well thats just the CC value for a long exp swu, of course YMMV :)