Revenue Based Frequent Flier Programs For Legacy Carriers?

[omegaet]

Some of you (us) are more into airline frequent flier programs and their usage than others.

For those who use and 'abuse' these programs regularly, are your tracking the 'murmurs' and 'rumors' regarding the possible/probably conversion to a 'new normal' for legacy carriers within the next year?

Randy Petersen seems to believe that a wholesale shift is imminent, while Gary Leff is leaning toward Delta being the first major to adopt this posture.

jmbklj you seem to be a miles junkie and follow these trends. What do you think.

kyshel, you probably have some thoughts on this subject as well.

If these changes do come about any time soon, then we will be adjusting our work patterns to accommodate burning a pile of miles sitting in several programs we use. No way do we plan to see our hard earned miles just evaporate after one year or whatever the time limitations.

[kyshel]

I haven't seen anything about this but I hardly go into flyertalk. Nothing in tripadvisor forums [YET].
Not sure what that will do to us, since we don't do revenue travel. Together we have about 300K and much of that is from shopping or credit card bonus/use. We've been amassing miles for upgrade use when Boss retires in about 4 years. (Flying as retirees, we lose a little status on the standby list. Bummer!) Then we'll buy discounted employee tickets, use miles for upgrades, etc. Our Platinum Amex card points have to be converted to miles for a fee, so we only use it as necessary. We can also convert them to Starwood pts @ 3 to 1, which can be more valuable than miles in some instances. I hope they don't start a trend and mess with my Starwood program.

[omegaet]

This is one of the places I noticed the comments some time ago:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/2012/03/22/the-delta-rumors-on-moving-to-a-revenue-based-frequent-flyer-program/

In a way, it makes sense for Delta, since they can dispense with those of us who 'stack' and 'save' for the seats up front.....I travel, but there's no way I'm racking up 200,000 miles a year with one carrier these days.

We covet our Amex Rewards points.....and continue to build our backlog.

[jmbklj]

Yes, there have been pages and pages of posts on this topic for several months in the FlyerTalk Delta threads.

As long as I still have business trips to do, I think this type of change may be to my advantage; for example, my $780 nonstop fare CMH-MSP earlier this year that earns few miles but generates lots of revenue.......or my $860 ticket to Los Angeles last week vs much lower fares booked to LAX weeks in advance.

It makes sense that the airlines want to reward those customers who generate the most revenue for them.

Bottomline, this type of change may favor business travelers who often buy short notice expensive fares, especially those flyers doing expensive short segments.

There have also been threads on FT about several new job postings for the Delta Skymiles program, making people nervous about a coming change.

Southwest has already made a similar change and I think it may be a matter of time before some variations of these programs are introduced. Some think that now is an opportune time for Delta to introduce such a change with United/Continental addressing merger issues and with the turmoil that American is having. If one airline is successful in doing this, the other big airlines would likely follow suit.

One thing you can be sure of............When you get those emails from your preferred airline about "New Enhancements", watch out!

[omegaet]

jmbklj, such a change would probably not favor me as small business owner and business traveler. It is very rare that I can't plan my business travel to capitalize on lower fares, plus I have two large airports from which to select for most of my destinations. I can fly to r/t LA for less than $360, NYC for less than $250 and still add miles to my accounts.

I can hear the revenue noise getting louder and I understand the desire of management to continue to tinker with 'enhancements.' Guess I should be happy I enjoyed the earlier version of frequent flier programs and took advantage of those perks.

[jmbklj]

Guess I should be happy I enjoyed the earlier version of frequent flier programs and took advantage of those perks.

Ah yes, the good old days.......

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I am glad that I just get my miles the regular way - from flying. I don't have much accumulated, about 28,000 or so in United/Continental and have not really used them for upgrading since the fees to upgrade end up being more expensive than just getting a discount 1st/business ticket - this is so weird!

I have not even heard anything about changes - what exactly is going on?

[omegaet]

Presently, most programs credit us with distances flown on trips (plus a bonus here and there), the revenue based approach would replace distance with a calculator of how many miles a customer would earn based on the price of their ticket.

Currently, I receive a minimum of 4,686 miles flying r/t FLL-LAX.....under a revenue based program, if I catch an average fare, I would be credited with 360 or so miles.....I see that as a potential loss of 4,326 miles. On a flight to Santiago, Chile, I receive a minimum of 8,275 miles flying r/t MIA-SCL....now and then, I can catch a r/t coach fare around $1,000 on AA...big difference in the miles credited

[jmbklj]

Another article on this topic......

Does Today’s Mileage Crediting Glitch Offer a Glimpse into Delta’s Future Revenue-Based Frequent Flyer Program - View from the Wing

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Ah OK... I would rather have my miles credited based on the miles flown as opposed to the price.