OK, you got me there.

The 4900 published was for a one-way free ticket.

So, you're complaining because your $230 round trip cross country airfares on brand new airplanes aren't giving you enough FF points?

By all means, fly United to Dulles then, I guess. You can tell everyone how much "VXsux" on one of their planes. I hear they're quite nice.

A UA 319 or 320 is a fantastic experience in E+ (ignoring the service issues). It is a much nicer ride than any standard VX seat.

Well, you're paying extra for the E+ until you get UA status, but yeah, that's the idea, I guess- if you don't like the package that VX offers (good planes and prices, not so good FF program), find someone else who offers you more of what you want. I find that coming into a forum with an account designed to whine about how an airline "sux" to be a somewhat less productive way of dealing with your problems.

I also think paying $114 for each leg of a cross-country trip (I'm assuming before taxes and fees- so we're still talking about <$300) shouldn't have you crying in your beer about how your FF benefits suck- and that's coming from someone who largely agrees that VX's FF program isn't very awesome... but I also think that the idea of brand loyalty to crappy airlines because you can occasionally get superlative experiences on other airlines as a result of your FF program is sort of wacky- it's like driving a bad car that goes into the shop regularly and has all kinds of problems because once or twice a year you can rent a Ferrari for a week for next to nothing. I think frequent flyer programs should really be afterthoughts compared to the operation of the airline itself, I guess- which is how I think VX is set up (though some improvements would be nice- points not expiring after 18 months, ways to upgrade seats using points and perhaps a higher point tier or two for more frequent fliers being the ones I could think of, like say 5x/6x/7x, which is what they do at DJ/VA).

I agree with all of this, except I think it's fine to come in to a VX forum and whine about it. I hate forum experiences where it's all fanbois :-)

I don't think it's fine to copy and paste the whine into 3 different threads, two of which are inappropriate.

Oh, I don't have a problem with it, per se... but when it comes to purchasing decisions, voting with your dollars is ALWAYS the best way to go in my book.

This is Flyertalk, not the VX fanboi forum. I find the negative posts in forums to be immensely valuable in quickly figuring out what the positives and negatives of the various programs are.

OK, I guess I should read to the end before responding. Agreed.

But it's not the "troll the VX forum because I'm upset about Elevate" forum, either. The way I see it is if they're making the same post in 3 different threads and have a username of "VXSux", they're trolling, not engaging in serious discussion.

As I said, I largely agree with the poster's point that Elevate isn't a particularly good deal for the frequent flier (back before all the details were announced, some other poster said Elevate would be a watered-down version of Rapid Rewards- this sounds about right in hindsight). Seeing as one of the favorite pastimes of FT participants is to get good deals on mileage, I don't EXPECT a lot of VX fanboi-ism (similar to how WN gets ripped a lot here). What positive feeling there will be will be based on how VX flies their airline and how they treat their customers who fly them, not on "well, they sort of suck, but I get enough mileage every year from these guys to fly a better airline to Europe or Asia..."

+1. To all of the above, actually. Critique is helpful to making VX a better airline. They may have to make unpopular decisions now, but that doesn't mean things can't change based on constructive feedback in forums like this. And fanbois just help get the word out, taken with a healthy grain of salt. I like this forum because it seems to be greatly balanced, most of the time, with really good people contributing.

18 month expiration is steep. Too bad there wasn't a fly in that period and extend another 18 months.

Yeah, I think the 18 month expiry is the worst 'feature' of VX's FF program. That will turn a lot of ppl away from it.