longing4piedmont

Where have you taken your business and will you come back?

Any one who has been active in this forum over the past two to three years has noticed a substantial decrease in posting here. If the others are like me, they have taken their business to another carrier and as a result have less to contribute here. The reasons for this move are not the purpose of this thread. Mine are well documented if you want to do a search.

I’m interested in knowing where you took your business to and will you come back? Now that you have left US, what will it take to get you back?

Personally I’m at a cross roads. I’ve taken all but 18 segments this year to other carriers, primarily DL. In order to re-qualify for CP, I need thirty more segments. As I’ve state before, if I’m not going to be a CP, I’m not going to fly US. If I wait to see the impact of Doug and crew, I may wait too long and miss CP. I now must decide whether it is worth the effort to protect my status?

Any one else trying to make this decision?

rhodeweary

Every-other-week BOS-LAX runs got me to 1K on UA midway through the year. Their nonstops make more sense than a connection, especially on redeyes. With 50K US miles, mostly from the rollover, I'm facing my first non-CP year in 7-8 years. I could knock out another 50K to get there, but why not just put the miles toward UA, and gather a couple extra UA systemwide upgrades and call it a year? It's just that after 10+ years at some preferred status on US, I feel like I'm cheating on my wife ... and if they'd just freaking acknowledge million mile status with some elite for life scenario like AA and others do, this would be an easier decision....

ibrandsguest

I switched to United. No plans to come back to US. I'd return only if United treats me as badly as US did one time or if United shuts down; I don't expect either event to happen in the near future.

AtlanticBeach

Have not flown US since 5/27/05 since they no longer fly where I have needed to go this summer. Now have status on AA and Airtran (big whoop) and may qualify for a companion pass on WN. Oh yeah, and a friends' Canadair 604. ^

I will return to the big blue bird this weekend and have a bunch of trips scheduled on US during the next two months. There are about 20K miles planned for this period on US and some 2 hour non-stops on WN.

It will be interesting to see and hear the changes that have occurred over the summer.

TomBascom

US hasn't been flying where I've been going. I could do alternate airports but they add 1 to 2 hours drive time and, at this point, I don't think that it's worth it.

I've been mostly flying NW. Initially that was very, very good. They've cut back on in-flight service substantially of late which is bad. The US snack basket is definitely better than a bag of spinzels and snack mix. But drinks are still in glass which is good. And the coffee is usually decent -- especially compared to US'. NW's clubs are excellent! The F cabins in the Airbuses are all F16 and snagging an upgrade as a gold has been very reliable. And the 757s are F24. Upgrading across the pond, OTOH, seems to be a problem

NW's use of technology is light-years beyond anything US has done.

Would I come back? Perhaps, I've certainly got a soft spot for US, but US would need to 1) be flying where I need to go, 2) have reasonably competitive service, 3) do a lot to improve their e-commerce capabilities.

fireworksboy

Hadn't flown US for 12-18 months on the theory that things looked bleak. Took my US business over to CO where I had been doing half of my business anyway. (Made Plat there)
Since the AW news I took a second look at them and then the Preferred challenge promos came along and I should be CP by the end of the month but then I am back to qualifying for my CO status.
I still have bad feelings about what happened at PIT and the fact that PIT is now less appealing because of the lack of direct service. (I live between CLE and PIT)
In summary, because I'll have status again, I'll fly them when they're cheaper. No more, no less. When CO and US tie in price, it'll be CO. US deserve no more than that and they probably deserve less.
Just my story.

bowdenj

I've also gone to NW. I'm about 3 segments away from Gold on NW. Short of Silver on US for re-qualify but will probably book my next few weekend trips (LAX/BOS/ORD/PHL/MCO) on US just to re-qualify Silver on US for 2006.

pitflyer

Left USAirways as my preferred carrier about 2.5 years ago. Flew American (earned Plat, and got used to connections) several times, then had a stint down in Atlanta where I flew Delta. Now that my business travel is down to nearly zero I fly Southwest most of the time (no change fees are what still seals the deal) but otherwise it's cheapest carrier goes... the airlines have decided to only compete on price, so they set the table that way.

PSU2

although I don't fly that often (about twice a year) I fly either NW or Southwest. I used to fly strictly US. Now I do everything I can to avoid them. Southwest to Florida and Chicago and Northwest to Detroit and Minneapolis.

snokums925

HP does this! Once you are a million miler, you remain Gold Elite for lifetime.

jimcfsus

How about for those of us who have almost 2 million earned?

PHL

I wonder how this will affect the program of the newly merged carrier that will operate solely with Dividend Miles. With programs like AA and DL where they give you status for "life", it is not for YOUR life, it's the life of the program. Hence, if the HP FlightFund program is defunct after the merger, what happens to all those "lifetime" golds? The program's life is over, will the status that goes with it be? Hmmmmmmmm.....

If those members are grandfathered, then what about all the US million+ milers (and there are a *LOT* of them)??

monitor

About a year ago, we decided that the top tier Medallion status that we were nearing on DL had become virtually meaningless because almost all of our regular routes were changing over to Song and RJs.

Since I believed that the US guys at the RoachFest were sincere in talking about focusing on FLL (I learned better about them after a bit), we shifted all of our business to US, where as GPs, we were upgraded domestically every time and still had the choice of a few nonstops everywhere we needed to go. When we are going somewhere, we want to get there and changing at either ATL or CLT has no attraction for us (US on the other hand, has changes available for our routes at DCA if the nonstops are not available, and DCA is just about the easiest place to change flights that one can imagine).

This year, we will both hit CP about mid-September and will have a good chance to evaluate the HP impact over the next year.

As far as a comparison between the service on US and that on DL, there is none. The US people have bucked up mightily since the merger was announced, the planes are generally clean and comfortable with good supplies of pillows and blankets (items that DL has decided are not necessary for the passengers' comfort), and on our two or three hour fllights, we don't want any airline food, preferring the US snack basket to anything DL puts out in F (we await the seasonal return of the xoxos, some of which turned up unexpectedly on a PBI-DCA flight last week).

We have not taken DL mainline since early this year and do not know how the personnel are holding up under the doom and gloom scenarios that are going around right now, but an FA on a DL coded Chautauqua flight last week implied that it was "not so good."

So, we're not going anywhere and maybe L4P has a different mix of DL flights than we would have so that PM is important to him, but that status would be useless to us and the US Preferred treatment is very satisfactory. We are staying.

US AIRWAYS FAN

I have my feet firmly planted with US Airways. I guess that is no shocker to anyone.

zsmith2

If anything I have doubled my business with US and have no reason to switch to another carrier. I look forward to the bright future of the marriage and will be at the wedding and honeymoon.