[mysterypie]

> As someone who worked in airline revenue management, it always seemed odd that the sales tactics people use everywhere else weren't being used by airlines

Remember the really old days when air miles were awarded solely by distance flown rather than by dollars paid? This made no business sense. It meant that someone who flew the cheapest tickets could rack up as many points as a last-minute first class business traveller who spent massively more ticket.

With the airlines I’m familiar with, it seems that pricing anomaly has been corrected. Air miles are much more correlated with the price of the ticket these days. Eg., you don’t even get air miles on the cheapest tickets on one airline I know.

But I still wonder why the airline industry created an air miles formula so disconnected from the value of the passenger in the early days.

[bronson]

Because of the difference between:

"Congratulations! You flew 100,000 miles with us!"

"Congratulations! You spent $100,000 with us!"

[nocoiner]

The first mileage program was introduced only a couple years after deregulation, so it probably made a lot more sense at the time as a rough proxy for revenue, and revenue management at the airlines wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as it is today.

[zeroonetwothree]

Alaska still uses miles flown. It’s pretty annoying since I’m doing some short hop flights with them that cost a lot and I get basically nothing for it.

I actually prefer the miles per $ model since it seems more fair for everyone. Obviously it’s less exploitable but that’s exactly the sort of thing everyone is complaining about.

[listenallyall]

In the early days you didn't have the internet where people would share every tiny anomaly, allowing thousands of people to exploit them. Even then, you had a few people realize they could do mileage runs, but it was considered additional revenue and the perks of doing so weren't valued nearly as highly as they are today.