dhammer53

So besides USAir saving all those miles, I'm sure lots of USAir flyers will now fly additional flights, and pay more money, to obtain status.

I will now kiss off USAir on HPN/PHL, and HPN/DCA flights.

dingo

The email made me chuckle when I read it this Valentines day morning...I told my wife that they must think we are idiots by playing the rising fuel costs card again.

boazs

Shedding tears on the keyboard, I just updated MileCalc.com so that the default "Minimum Miles per Leg" for DM will be "None". How tragic.

Cargojon

After analyzing my choices for my travel patterns, I may have no choice but to go WN. God that pains me, but I might just go it given this crap.

Who is going to also pay the price here are the small/medium sized airports - the MDT, ERI, AVP's of the world who may now lose passenger count from fleeing US passengers to CLE, BWI, PHL where they may go WN or another carrier.

PittDoc

Funny - I didn't even get the US Valentines Day email. Ever since becoming CP I don't get any emails from US except E-saver spam. Despite calls to the CP desk and IT. Not even email confirmation of flights. Like I needed another reason to jump ship. CO even sent me a "thank you" email after taking a recent paid F trip.

Phudnik

DL has taken aggressive measures to win US FFs in the past (remember "fly one roundtrip to select markets and get DL Silver" from 2005?) and it wouldn't surprise me if they did something like this now -- especially on Shuttle routes, but also throughout the Southeast where they are US's primary competition.

This move does show a remarkable lack of understanding of their customer base that flies short hops on the East Coast, but that's not surprising given how Tempe has managed their East network. It makes their product even less competitive here.

I hope FFOCUS has some effect, but given Tempe's long history of failing to listen to anyone (customers or front-line employees) I doubt it. If they really wanted a dialogue, they'd have it already.

aztimm

Most of my biz travel is PHX to LAS/RNO/ABQ/ELP/S Cal. I know PHX-RNO is ~600 miles, but the others are less than 500 (although I don't know the exact amounts). I visit family in NE PA about twice a year, and usually fly PHX-PHL-AVP, and I think the PHL-AVP is ~100 miles or so. (If this sticks, I'll probably switch that trip to PHX-CLT-AVP).

My first reaction when I saw this, especially after just having seen a post on my company's travel site, was to status match to United. UA provides an easy form, they have a dedicated person to deal with my company, etc. This is especially true as I'm doing a mileage run tomorrow, with most of the miles on UA (SFO-FRA-SFO-PHX), but crediting to US. But if I did that, I'd have to either connect (and probably on my own time) for my work trips, or would never be in F on US.

But I think we all need to calm down. Like fare increases, this may not stick, and there may be something coming out next week, heck maybe even tomorrow, that takes all of this back. I think right now we need to watch how the other airlines react, and all just take a deep breath.

BobH

Just another reason not to do business with Useless Air.... the last time I tried using them, it was at a contracted rate/ carrier, I would have blown a connection and got put on the NW flight that I normally would have taken.

Bob H.

coachrowsey

These people in Tempe are idiots.




www.ffocus.org

ClueByFour

Apparently, the people who post on this forum (or some, anyway) seem to disagree with that.

I don’t have a dog in this flight since most of us in the West will not be impacted, however, [/quote]

Right. I suppose you are excluding the people that fly from PHX-anywhere in Southern California, LAS-Anwhere in Southern Cal, New Mexico to anywhere, and anyone who regularly connects from SoCal to anywhere. A small population to be sure. It's not like there are not 10+ flights a day in both directions from LAX, SAN, to PHX, LAS.....

iahphx

They have improved first class meals and are now improving the Envoy product, including new seats.

And the ontime performance continues to improve.

It doesn't justify today's move, but one shouldn't jump to overall service conclusions based on this action.

KevAZ

I had the exact feeling when they changed the HP HubClub policy to US' midway through the year to charge for alcohol. It's not like I was swilling loads of beer or wine, but it was the slap in the face after paying $300. They should have analyzed when people (re)joined and then sent vouchers to offset the rule change. But no, it was "this is the NEW HP/US and if you don't like it, leave!" I did, I never paid again.

I spent my 800,000 DM on a trip for 3 to OZ and have been using WN for all short hauls and places where AA is a pain to get to from PHX instead of US since last year. With the new boarding rules, WN is actually more comfortable than US. PHX-LAX-PHX is 717 miles. The 283 miles per RT x 20 times per year isn't a tremendous amount, but again, it's how they are treating their customers.

Glad that I made the switch. Building up enough miles for int'l award travel then having to fight them to get it wasn't worth it. WN will do for me and I'll pay for my int'l flights.

gardener

I think it will be interesting to see what happens when you fly a short segment on US and credit to UA MP.

Just another in a long series of actions by US that says, "We do not value the business / frequent flyer".

If UA only credits actual miles for US flights, I will stop flying the few segments on US that I am flying now.

Let's hope this contagion does not spread.

apex

My USAirways World Mastecard bill was due today. When I went on line to pay I saw that the annual fee of $79 was going to be billed on my March statement. I called this morning to cancel my card and explained why. I was then transferred and spoke to another person. I explained that the FF benefits with USAIR have continued to erode and that I would be looking into moving to another carrier my primary for air travel.

I also said that using the $99 companion ticket last year cost me more than a non-stop on NWA for both my wife and I from IND to RSW, but used it anyway so I could get my segment credit to retain Gold status.

The lady offerd to waive the $79 annual fee, but I chose to cancel anyway.
Maybe more will do the same!

BoeingBoy

Clue,

I wonder if this is just another sign of Tempe's myoptic "the world is just like PHX" thinking. I came up with a list of short-haul flights last night - not all-inclusive by any means since it started with mainline flights from BTS's Dec 07 on-time database and expanded with flights I knew were non-stop from the 2Q07 (latest available) Air Fare report. I'll post it if anyone's interested.

The difference in average yields between East and West short-haul is striking. On the East side, it's rare to see average yields less than 50 cents/mile unless there's direct low-cost competition (like PHL-RDU) or it's primarily a leisure market (like CLT-MCO). However, on the West side it's rare to see average yields over 50 cents/mile (PHX-TUS is the lone exception I found) and most are in the 25-40 cent/mile range.

So I just wonder if they assume all short-haul fliers are like those they're accustomed to in their little HP world so heavily influenced by WN. If so, I think they're about to get a rude awakening......

Jim