I used to fly 110 times/year for work, internationally. I had gold status with several airlines at once. I did this for about 8 years (although the last two years I went down to about 80 flights/year).
I live in SF and, of course, I have to fly United if I don't want to make one connection every time I fly somewhere in the US. And I am a Premier 1k member.
I can confirm that the perks are almost useless; that this absurd race loses any meaning when everybody else is racing with you.
How can Premier 1k be good, if I'm not among the top 1% (the only case in which automatic upgrades and such would actually be useful)?
All in all, I hate United. And I'm not the only one [0].
By the way, why does Google NOT provide this link when I search for "Untied"? [1]
Former 1k flyer here. The perks used to be nice. I'd show up at Logan and they'd already have me rerouted if my flight was delayed (and of course, upgraded to 1st class).
OK, so that was the one perk. That and the red carpet clubs used to actually be nice. I remember spending some miles on my wife's membership so she could enjoy a drink while waiting for me at the airport... then a month later the security lines being moved in front of the club so she couldn't get in.
All my miles were spent on other people. It's surprising how many people will hit you up when they need to fly somewhere but can't afford it. For the longest time I was saving up for a trip to Asia on one of those lay-flat seats in a private suite. I was close when my wife mentioned to me that she sent her brother, his wife, and their kids to Kansas. Freaking Kansas... oy. They might have said thank you.
In all the years I did it, I had one proper "free" vacation. It included a suite at a crazy nice hotel in Manhattan well above anything I could afford.
All that flying and being a 1k made me bitter. I hate traveling now because of the way they treat the no-ks. I'm bitter with the casual travelers who don't understand how to get through security with any efficiency at all. I'm bitter with security for it's intrusiveness that provides no security at all. I'm bitter with the airlines for putting their most jaded and customer service averse flight attendants on the planes that go wherever you want to vacation. I'm bitter with the guy who puts his bag in the overhead 3 seats back and has to swim upstream when we're departing the plane. The list goes on. Don't even get me started on the "$25 extra for a bag or a seat upgrade" I'm an angry old man in airports.
For anybody still putting in the time in the air - look into surfair. Chartered flights out of private airports for a monthly membership fee. No TSA, No lines. No last minute $2500 tickets. It's awesome. Limited range of cities though.
I'll disagree that the perks are almost useless. But they can be a bit subtle. In comparison to people's typical experience flying, as a United 1K:
When I call the 800 number, a real human being picks up right away and helps me.
If I'd like to catch an earlier or later flight, if it's within 24 hours, I can usually make the change with no charge. I use this perk dozens of times a year, and it even enables me to book cheaper flights because I'll usually be able to make adjustments on the day of travel.
If I end up on the standby list, I'm put at the top (because it goes in order of highest status before first come first served).
If I use miles to book a flight, I can cancel or change the flight at any time. This lets me speculatively book a vacation flight to Maui months ahead of time when availability is good, even if I'm not sure I'll be free then.
My entire family gets free bags and free extra legroom seats when they travel with me.
I get to sit in fancy lounges when traveling overseas.
And the first class upgrades are a nice bonus.
By the way, why does Google NOT provide this link when I search for "Untied"?
Because Google has (reasonably) understood that it was likely a incorrectly spelled request for united.com, which is clearly evident from just looking at Google Trends[0]. Note that they do offer a "did you really mean" link which will force the search for untied.com and then it's the number 1 hit.
I don't know anything about United. But my status on SouthWest and Delta is absurdly useful. On SouthWest they gave me a companion pass, so any time I fly somewhere, my wife comes with me for free. For a consultant, usually flying every week Monday-Thursday, this let me skip a couple weekends from the rat race, since if my wife is there, why go home anyway.
On Delta, I can fly standby on any flight the same day. It's so handy I got in the habit of just booking the last flight of the day and just come to the airport whenever I feel like it. Even when I don't do that, I often land at airports early enough to hop an earlier connection than my official one, and I end up getting home half a day earlier than expected since I can standby on normally not permitted connections (airline regulations require a certain amount of time to make your connection, but if you can walk up to any gate and ask to standby, a lot more connections are available).
And of course there are the free upgrades to first and free extra legroom seats people normally have to pay for and the free flights using earned miles.
Maybe Google figured it out from the activity your link provided in the last 8 hours, but when I click on [1], the top result is [0], and there is a prompt asking if I meant "united.com".
The main perk is not getting bumped off an overbooked flight. I have to say I share your hatred of United, but I hate American more ever since they put me on the SSSS list [1] for having a round the world ticket. Morons - don’t they know the world is flat.
I've been Executive Platinum (top published tier) on AA since the merger (came in as Chairman's Preferred with US Airways).
AA similarly has a "secret" invite-only level above that -- Concierge Key -- and rumors about how they decide who to invite into it (not so secretive: people who spend lots of money, and probably people who have influence over the travel contracts of large companies). Never been a CK, likely never will be. The game was interesting for a while, but now I just have a harder time caring.
Personally I look at it as a cyclic thing. When the economy's in the tubes, airlines lavish benefits on frequent business travelers because the rest of the country isn't flying. When the economy picks up again and people start buying flights to Disney for their vacations again, the benefits get slashed.
Right now we're in a slash/devalue period. Last year I "only" put a bit over 50k miles to AA, which will drop me to Platinum with them at the end of the month when 2015 status expires, picked up Platinum on Delta as a hedge, and went on a spending spree using up my system-wide upgrades. Flew myself in business class to Europe and back multiple times, flew myself and someone else to Hawaii in first, gave a co-worker a business-class upgrade on JFK-SFO, etc.
Irony is, of course, that last month I moved and now work in SF, and UA is the only one of the big three I don't have some kind of useful status with. But living near where I work also means less need to travel, so I'll probably just buy tickets by schedule/price from here on out. DL in particular is nice about cheap first-class fares since they want to fill the front cabin with people who paid rather than people using frequent-flyer perks.
United probably spends a good deal of money on SEO to prevent United from matching Untied. I've worked for a company that spent a great deal of marketing time/energy to hide a similar type of search result on a news article and its comments section.
It's pretty smart how these loyalty programs are designed. Much of the behavior hinges on flights being expensed, while it's the individual employee who reaps the benefits. It causes people to constantly overspend on flights because they aren't the ones paying.
As part of the UK civil service I’m not allowed to keep airmiles accrued during business flights: they have to be declared and donated back to the government.
I don't mind a bit of work travel, but I am also picky about the routes I take. Anything in Europe, it is SFO to "somewhere in Europe, not Heathrow" and then from there. I've usually had status (Gold) but my wife and I also travel enough privately where taking advantage of a travel credit card that gives you status (and extra miles blahblah) helps.
I've not done a milage run, nor will I do multiple hops just to get a few hundred (or a thousand) extra miles. The only exception to that is if the alliance I prefer (Star Alliance) doesn't have as direct as say One World, I'll still take the Star Alliance route for the miles.
About the only airline I travel with more than UA/other star alliance partners is Alaska because I head up to the Pacific Northwest frequently.
For better or worse, this just locks you in to crappy airlines.
I spent 7.5 years in a full-time travel job. The perks (other than occasional upgrades on redeyes) did very little for me. I wound up using miles just for last minute flights.
I did used to get a big laugh out of people (usually junior consultants) who confused airline status with real social status.
> I did used to get a big laugh out of people (usually junior consultants) who confused airline status with real social status.
I see this a lot among consultants - they love to talk about airports, airport lounges, "horrifying" delays, rude customs agents, free upgrades, and seat pitches. Bizarre.
Fun article, and one which shows the dark side of gamification. If you provide points, levels, and leaderboards, people will sacrifice their lives to leveling up for stupid little perks like jumping the line, slightly larger seats, and liquor and snacks that you probably shouldn't have anyway.
I was one of these people years ago. I was doing a lot of international business class flights on behalf of a public software company, and had 1k and global services status. Then I burned out and quit, and spent the next several years barely making premier silver. It's no big deal once you get over your sense of entitlement. And United has put all the perks up for sale anyway, so you can now buy whatever perk that you can't live without.
A couple of months ago, I finally made million miler status, which is a kind of "emeritus" status: you (and a designated companion) get star alliance gold status for life. This is actually kind of awesome since now I don't have to worry about getting miles every year to make premier. I still accumulate points so that I can get free tickets, but being retired from the elite status rat race is very relaxing.
My old boss discovered that there is a class higher than first with British Airways when he found himself on a flight with the research analyst from Goldman Sachs that covered the airline sector.
There actually is a formal version of "extreme status" on BA, in the form of a Black Card [1] [2]. Basically, you need to be something like "the guy responsible for the travel spend at big corp" and each membership is approved by the board.
Benefits supposedly include delaying an entire airliner by up to half an hour if you are running late, and it's so rare many lounge staff will deny you entry, not understanding what the card is.
Whenever I try to imagine nilth class travelers, all I come up with is Hedonism-Bot from Futurama, giggling and eating grapes. Surrounded by giggling gynoid party-bots. In a solid gold hot tub filled with champagne. Entertained by a live string quartet. Plus Bootsy Collins on electric bass. As flakes of 99.995% pure cocaine gently fall from the ceiling, like snow.
As I don't ever get de luxe accommodation, I simply have no basis for imagining plus luxe.
I imagine you're referring to high-roller passengers, who spend so much on a given airline they get extra perks like complimentary chauffered limo service and high-end hotel stays around all trips. For actual travel though, they still have the same seating arrangements on the plane as other first class passengers.
In the early days of train travel (1840s), they quickly realised that the first class passengers arrived no faster than the cheaper passengers, somthey did the only sensible thing. They took the roof and Windows off the third class carriages and made you share them with cattle.
This way people paid extra to avoid the weather and cow shit
There is a hard upper limit to how good flying in a tin can at 35,000 feet can be made (1)
If airlines could strap economy class passengers to the wings they would
(1) actually an ad exec made an excellent point in a ted talk - instead of spending 4bn on reducing the time the high speed train went from London to Paris, spend 2bn on half naked super models handing out free champagne and no one will care how long the journey is. This is of course what airline stewardesses were supposed to be before all those pesky lawsuits.
I have traveled some for work over my career, but I never paid any attention to any of these programs or miles or anything like that. I probably missed out on a free flight at some point, but the thought of keeping track of those things seems tedious and dreadful. The whole culture of travel is like that really, parsing the tiny differences between anonymous airports and roughly-identical airlines. People become obsessed with checking in online exactly 24 hours in advance, etc. Expending effort for the tiniest, tiniest morsels of difference and succor in an overall terrible experience. It's understandable of course, but I just accept that it's all bad and try to forget about it as soon as it's over.
You really don't have to spend hours min-maxing your miles like described in the article. Just spend two minutes creating an account online, and ten seconds inputting your member number when buying tickets or checking in. Then two years later check your balance and you might have a free ticket worth $500+. That's a huge return given the amount of time invested.
It's like credit cards. There are entire websites dedicated to min-maxing the hell out of credit card points, sign-up bonuses, etc. But you don't have to do that. You can just spend an hour getting a good credit card (assuming you can :/) and then reap massive benefits compared to the amount of time invested.
I didn't do anything but sign up for club access on a website, link my number to my credit card, and tell them at work my number. Everything else is done automatically. I have 4 free return flights saved up now, ready to go.
It depends on how you value the perks - many of them (access to the GS lounges, for example) can't actually be purchased so there's no "real" value for them besides how much they are worth to you.
If you're flying 50 times a year for business, lounge access may be worth substantially more to you than if you only flew a few times a year. Not to mention if you're going to be flying 50 times a year, that $560 means ~$10 per flight to make your experience substantially less awful.
Well that's kind of the core of the article, no? In dollar amount alone, yes, there are benefits worth more than $560. But are they worth the money?
I have resigned myself to never taking a first class reward flight because I can get at least two economy trips with the same amount of miles. I just can't justify that to myself, despite the (more than 2x) dollar amounts attached.
Here is an alternative algorithm: fly with whichever airline is the cheapest, having a frequent flyer account on each airline. Accumulate miles separately.
It won't get you a elite status, just a status slightly better than the normal flyer -- and free tickets too.
It will prevent you from reaching the extremes of this mile madness, like spending money just to maintain your status.
Bonus: when airlines merge, you get a really nice status. It may not be that interesting now with so little airlines in competition, but around year 2000 that was something regular
> Absent posted guidelines, road-warrior message boards are filled with speculation about why certain travellers receive Global Services. Is it a measure of dollars spent? Segments flown? Behavior?
The fact that he actually tried to redeem his points for a free flight probably made him a target for infection with GS-MAD :)
I've never been a business globe trotter, but I travelled every 2 weeks in 2014 between Ottawa, Toronto and Washington DC. That equalled about 10,000 "air" miles or about $50.
Whoopety doo.
In the mid-90's I was travelling about once a month between the midwest and the coasts. That was enough for a couple round trips in "air" miles.
These days it's barely worth it to be part of the programs (I am, but the "perks" are way less than they used to be).
I flew two extra trips to Asia last year to get American Airlines Executive Platinum status.
After a year and getting all the nice lounge access and international long-haul upgrades, I think it's worth it!
Take my girlfriend and family around the world using a combination of miles / money and everything things I'm rich, when really I'm just a wannabe travel hacker.
There is no overlap between Global Entry privileges and airline status benefits.
Obscene surcharges on awards are really only an issue for a handful of airlines like BA. I've redeemed over two million miles and the highest surcharge I've ever paid on an award was $350 for Singapore first class from Singapore to Tokyo to Los Angeles. I was fine with that.
It's almost as if humans are primates, and so are inclined to pursue markers of social status all out of proportion to actual utility in a civilized setting.
Casey Neistat of Youtube fame has a video illustrating the perks and perils of flying Executive Platinum with American Airlines. The perks seem pretty damn nice if you're already going to be flying that much anyways.
I've never understood why airline miles follow each individual person rather than the company that's paying for the weekly business class seats.
Seems like the Senior Manager who just joined the firm should be bumped up to first class in front of the Junior Consultant that's been flying out weekly for a year.
They're designed as incentives for individuals, because at most companies individuals have a significant degree of leeway in booking flights. You might have to book through the corporate travel agent, but typically you can still choose that you want flight X instead of Y. So United (or whoever) giving the specific individual status/perks is designed to encourage them to keep choosing United tickets, even when sometimes a competitor might have a better or cheaper route.
It'd be possible to design a loyalty program aimed at entire companies, and there's a little bit of movement in that direction, especially targeting small and medium-sized businesses (e.g. United PerksPlus). The goal of those would be to encourage the whole company to standardize on one airline. Big companies tend not to want to do that, because their travel needs are too varied for it to make sense to require all their employees to use one airline. So the main target of the programs is the corporate traveler who is being reimbursed for travel: they have a choice in their travel arrangements (within reason), and since they're spending someone else's money, they're also relatively price-insensitive, which makes them especially lucrative. Hotel loyalty programs work similarly.
For IT professionals, completely ignoring all points systems (hotel, flight, car rental, and credit card) will remove enough clutter from your mind to earn more than the points provide.
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|10 years ago|reply
I used to fly 110 times/year for work, internationally. I had gold status with several airlines at once. I did this for about 8 years (although the last two years I went down to about 80 flights/year).
I live in SF and, of course, I have to fly United if I don't want to make one connection every time I fly somewhere in the US. And I am a Premier 1k member.
I can confirm that the perks are almost useless; that this absurd race loses any meaning when everybody else is racing with you. How can Premier 1k be good, if I'm not among the top 1% (the only case in which automatic upgrades and such would actually be useful)?
All in all, I hate United. And I'm not the only one [0].
By the way, why does Google NOT provide this link when I search for "Untied"? [1]
[0]: http://www.untied.com/main.shtml
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=untied&oq=untied&aqs=chrome....
[+] [-] Gratsby|10 years ago|reply
OK, so that was the one perk. That and the red carpet clubs used to actually be nice. I remember spending some miles on my wife's membership so she could enjoy a drink while waiting for me at the airport... then a month later the security lines being moved in front of the club so she couldn't get in.
All my miles were spent on other people. It's surprising how many people will hit you up when they need to fly somewhere but can't afford it. For the longest time I was saving up for a trip to Asia on one of those lay-flat seats in a private suite. I was close when my wife mentioned to me that she sent her brother, his wife, and their kids to Kansas. Freaking Kansas... oy. They might have said thank you.
In all the years I did it, I had one proper "free" vacation. It included a suite at a crazy nice hotel in Manhattan well above anything I could afford.
All that flying and being a 1k made me bitter. I hate traveling now because of the way they treat the no-ks. I'm bitter with the casual travelers who don't understand how to get through security with any efficiency at all. I'm bitter with security for it's intrusiveness that provides no security at all. I'm bitter with the airlines for putting their most jaded and customer service averse flight attendants on the planes that go wherever you want to vacation. I'm bitter with the guy who puts his bag in the overhead 3 seats back and has to swim upstream when we're departing the plane. The list goes on. Don't even get me started on the "$25 extra for a bag or a seat upgrade" I'm an angry old man in airports.
For anybody still putting in the time in the air - look into surfair. Chartered flights out of private airports for a monthly membership fee. No TSA, No lines. No last minute $2500 tickets. It's awesome. Limited range of cities though.
[+] [-] DavidAdams|10 years ago|reply
When I call the 800 number, a real human being picks up right away and helps me. If I'd like to catch an earlier or later flight, if it's within 24 hours, I can usually make the change with no charge. I use this perk dozens of times a year, and it even enables me to book cheaper flights because I'll usually be able to make adjustments on the day of travel. If I end up on the standby list, I'm put at the top (because it goes in order of highest status before first come first served). If I use miles to book a flight, I can cancel or change the flight at any time. This lets me speculatively book a vacation flight to Maui months ahead of time when availability is good, even if I'm not sure I'll be free then. My entire family gets free bags and free extra legroom seats when they travel with me. I get to sit in fancy lounges when traveling overseas. And the first class upgrades are a nice bonus.
[+] [-] dsp1234|10 years ago|reply
Because Google has (reasonably) understood that it was likely a incorrectly spelled request for united.com, which is clearly evident from just looking at Google Trends[0]. Note that they do offer a "did you really mean" link which will force the search for untied.com and then it's the number 1 hit.
[0] - https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=untied.com%2C%20unit...
[+] [-] lnanek2|10 years ago|reply
I don't know anything about United. But my status on SouthWest and Delta is absurdly useful. On SouthWest they gave me a companion pass, so any time I fly somewhere, my wife comes with me for free. For a consultant, usually flying every week Monday-Thursday, this let me skip a couple weekends from the rat race, since if my wife is there, why go home anyway.
On Delta, I can fly standby on any flight the same day. It's so handy I got in the habit of just booking the last flight of the day and just come to the airport whenever I feel like it. Even when I don't do that, I often land at airports early enough to hop an earlier connection than my official one, and I end up getting home half a day earlier than expected since I can standby on normally not permitted connections (airline regulations require a certain amount of time to make your connection, but if you can walk up to any gate and ask to standby, a lot more connections are available).
And of course there are the free upgrades to first and free extra legroom seats people normally have to pay for and the free flights using earned miles.
[+] [-] Cookingboy|10 years ago|reply
Last year I flew to Japan on an United flight, and for the first time in my life I felt more like livestock being handled than an actual human being.
[+] [-] nwjtkjn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|10 years ago|reply
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_S...
[+] [-] ubernostrum|10 years ago|reply
AA similarly has a "secret" invite-only level above that -- Concierge Key -- and rumors about how they decide who to invite into it (not so secretive: people who spend lots of money, and probably people who have influence over the travel contracts of large companies). Never been a CK, likely never will be. The game was interesting for a while, but now I just have a harder time caring.
Personally I look at it as a cyclic thing. When the economy's in the tubes, airlines lavish benefits on frequent business travelers because the rest of the country isn't flying. When the economy picks up again and people start buying flights to Disney for their vacations again, the benefits get slashed.
Right now we're in a slash/devalue period. Last year I "only" put a bit over 50k miles to AA, which will drop me to Platinum with them at the end of the month when 2015 status expires, picked up Platinum on Delta as a hedge, and went on a spending spree using up my system-wide upgrades. Flew myself in business class to Europe and back multiple times, flew myself and someone else to Hawaii in first, gave a co-worker a business-class upgrade on JFK-SFO, etc.
Irony is, of course, that last month I moved and now work in SF, and UA is the only one of the big three I don't have some kind of useful status with. But living near where I work also means less need to travel, so I'll probably just buy tickets by schedule/price from here on out. DL in particular is nice about cheap first-class fares since they want to fill the front cabin with people who paid rather than people using frequent-flyer perks.
[+] [-] laxatives|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gambiting|10 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/IOAPSfS.jpg
[+] [-] ludamad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshfraser|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robin_reala|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tamana|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mintplant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gyardley|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umanwizard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmspring|10 years ago|reply
I've not done a milage run, nor will I do multiple hops just to get a few hundred (or a thousand) extra miles. The only exception to that is if the alliance I prefer (Star Alliance) doesn't have as direct as say One World, I'll still take the Star Alliance route for the miles.
About the only airline I travel with more than UA/other star alliance partners is Alaska because I head up to the Pacific Northwest frequently.
[+] [-] mathattack|10 years ago|reply
I spent 7.5 years in a full-time travel job. The perks (other than occasional upgrades on redeyes) did very little for me. I wound up using miles just for last minute flights.
I did used to get a big laugh out of people (usually junior consultants) who confused airline status with real social status.
[+] [-] acchow|10 years ago|reply
I see this a lot among consultants - they love to talk about airports, airport lounges, "horrifying" delays, rude customs agents, free upgrades, and seat pitches. Bizarre.
[+] [-] chrismaeda|10 years ago|reply
I was one of these people years ago. I was doing a lot of international business class flights on behalf of a public software company, and had 1k and global services status. Then I burned out and quit, and spent the next several years barely making premier silver. It's no big deal once you get over your sense of entitlement. And United has put all the perks up for sale anyway, so you can now buy whatever perk that you can't live without.
A couple of months ago, I finally made million miler status, which is a kind of "emeritus" status: you (and a designated companion) get star alliance gold status for life. This is actually kind of awesome since now I don't have to worry about getting miles every year to make premier. I still accumulate points so that I can get free tickets, but being retired from the elite status rat race is very relaxing.
[+] [-] gadders|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crdb|10 years ago|reply
Benefits supposedly include delaying an entire airliner by up to half an hour if you are running late, and it's so rare many lounge staff will deny you entry, not understanding what the card is.
[1] http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-clu...
[2] http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...
[+] [-] logfromblammo|10 years ago|reply
As I don't ever get de luxe accommodation, I simply have no basis for imagining plus luxe.
[+] [-] Geekette|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|10 years ago|reply
This way people paid extra to avoid the weather and cow shit
There is a hard upper limit to how good flying in a tin can at 35,000 feet can be made (1)
If airlines could strap economy class passengers to the wings they would
(1) actually an ad exec made an excellent point in a ted talk - instead of spending 4bn on reducing the time the high speed train went from London to Paris, spend 2bn on half naked super models handing out free champagne and no one will care how long the journey is. This is of course what airline stewardesses were supposed to be before all those pesky lawsuits.
[+] [-] draw_down|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peferron|10 years ago|reply
It's like credit cards. There are entire websites dedicated to min-maxing the hell out of credit card points, sign-up bonuses, etc. But you don't have to do that. You can just spend an hour getting a good credit card (assuming you can :/) and then reap massive benefits compared to the amount of time invested.
[+] [-] megablast|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pricechild|10 years ago|reply
Why would this make sense? Surely there wouldn't be a benefit worth more than $560?
[+] [-] edutechnion|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatolicious|10 years ago|reply
If you're flying 50 times a year for business, lounge access may be worth substantially more to you than if you only flew a few times a year. Not to mention if you're going to be flying 50 times a year, that $560 means ~$10 per flight to make your experience substantially less awful.
[+] [-] corbet|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|10 years ago|reply
I have resigned myself to never taking a first class reward flight because I can get at least two economy trips with the same amount of miles. I just can't justify that to myself, despite the (more than 2x) dollar amounts attached.
[+] [-] devereaux|10 years ago|reply
It won't get you a elite status, just a status slightly better than the normal flyer -- and free tickets too.
It will prevent you from reaching the extremes of this mile madness, like spending money just to maintain your status.
Bonus: when airlines merge, you get a really nice status. It may not be that interesting now with so little airlines in competition, but around year 2000 that was something regular
[+] [-] frandroid|10 years ago|reply
The fact that he actually tried to redeem his points for a free flight probably made him a target for infection with GS-MAD :)
[+] [-] apercu|10 years ago|reply
Whoopety doo.
In the mid-90's I was travelling about once a month between the midwest and the coasts. That was enough for a couple round trips in "air" miles.
These days it's barely worth it to be part of the programs (I am, but the "perks" are way less than they used to be).
[+] [-] benhebert|10 years ago|reply
After a year and getting all the nice lounge access and international long-haul upgrades, I think it's worth it!
Take my girlfriend and family around the world using a combination of miles / money and everything things I'm rich, when really I'm just a wannabe travel hacker.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] saryant|10 years ago|reply
Obscene surcharges on awards are really only an issue for a handful of airlines like BA. I've redeemed over two million miles and the highest surcharge I've ever paid on an award was $350 for Singapore first class from Singapore to Tokyo to Los Angeles. I was fine with that.
[+] [-] wpietri|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brbsix|10 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/3AeYIUyZXKE
[+] [-] pkamb|10 years ago|reply
Seems like the Senior Manager who just joined the firm should be bumped up to first class in front of the Junior Consultant that's been flying out weekly for a year.
[+] [-] _delirium|10 years ago|reply
It'd be possible to design a loyalty program aimed at entire companies, and there's a little bit of movement in that direction, especially targeting small and medium-sized businesses (e.g. United PerksPlus). The goal of those would be to encourage the whole company to standardize on one airline. Big companies tend not to want to do that, because their travel needs are too varied for it to make sense to require all their employees to use one airline. So the main target of the programs is the corporate traveler who is being reimbursed for travel: they have a choice in their travel arrangements (within reason), and since they're spending someone else's money, they're also relatively price-insensitive, which makes them especially lucrative. Hotel loyalty programs work similarly.
[+] [-] yzh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeevans1000|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidoc|10 years ago|reply
https://vimeo.com/7167640