Big spenders vs frequent flyers

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 74 total)

  • LuganoPirate
    Participant

    Thanks Edski. From memory I’ve never done one, but in order for my kids to retain Silver a few years ago, they were just 100 miles short, we took a flight from Zurich to Lugano on December 30th. We went up by train in glorious weather, had lunch, enjoyed the lounge and watching aircraft.

    Of course while watching planes, I also saw the bad weather moving in. We then had one of the roughest flights I’ve been on, in the most awful weather on a bone shaker plane, a prop driven Saab. I so wish we’d gone up by plane and back by train. Anyway, the kids loved it, we survived and they kept their silver status!


    Charles-P
    Participant

    Like many people I gave up chasing status some time ago when I realised how difficult it was to maintain the higher levels. My flight and hotel choices are now made almost entirely on timetable, destinations and cost. I still collect points but they don’t influence my choice of who to use.


    JohnHarper
    Participant

    I think SQ PPS and NZ airpoints are also revenue based but I’m not certain.

    It wouldn’t make much difference to me what the airlines choose to do or not. I’m not going to be told that I have to spend X amount to get a silver card and Y amount to get a gold card. I already choose the airlines that offer me the journey I want at a price I am willing to pay for the standards of service they offer.

    Loyalty also cuts two ways. LH are still busy culling Miles & More in what appears from the outside to be a mad attempt to force travellers to pay more for their tickets if they want status. The only real result of it is that people seem to be defecting from LH in a big way particularly when travelling east but I don’t think it’s doing AF/KLM or BA any harm either.

    IIRC BA did this a few years ago and even turfed people out of the blue tier if they were not qualifying with however many flight they required, at the same time LH were welcoming all comers so it all goes full circle in the end anyay. LH will wake up one day in the next few years and realise they need even lower spending frequent flyers to keep their planes in the air and they had better reward them somehow. At the same time BA will probably decide that their scheme has grown too large and too many people have gold and silver cards so they will raise the stake on getting one and in doing so piss off a fair number of people who will defect to LH….


    IanFromHKG
    Participant

    “Are you a member of a revenue-based airline loyalty scheme such as Southwest Airlines’ Rapid Rewards or Jetblue’s True Blue? What has your experience been like?”

    No

    “What do you think about legacy carriers such as Delta that are introducing schemes that require you to have spent a certain amount of money to achieve tier status, as opposed to simply taking a certain number of flights or flown a certain number of miles?”

    As you will gather from my comments below, I think it is perfectly understandable. That isn’t necessarily to say that I agree with it, I’m actually fairly neutral as regards minimum requirements. I am a CX FF and only accrue miles on revenue tickets, so the “minimum number of flights on CX metal” requirement (I think there is one!) is not dissimilar in its effect. CX discounted economy tickets have lower accrual rates too which also leads to the same effect. My views here are that it shouldn’t just be a minimum requirement (as to which, more below)

    “Have you ever done a mileage run? What was your experience?”

    Yes, on several occasions. What was my experience? I am reminded of an anecdote concerning HRH Prince Philip who, on his arrival, was asked by a local functionary what his flight had been like. The ensuing conversation, as I recall, was:
    [HRH] “Have you ever been on a plane?”
    “Why, certainly”
    “Well, it was just like that…”
    So, what was my experience of the mileage runs? Well, it was just like that… Just like any other ‘plane trip. Having said that – with the exception of a weekend mileage run to BKK (from HKG) and another to KUL (ditto) I have generally done these as add-ons to a OW RTW flight. It is very time-consuming to work out itineraries which fit into the rules and which work from a timing perspective, and of course it can dramatically increase fatigue and time away from home. The only other feature I can think of that differed from an ordinary flight was the time I tacked on a return LHR to somewhere in the ME (Muscat I think) immediately prior to going to the US (so I flew LHR-ME-LHR-JFK) and BA refused to check my bags through, or to hold them and simply send them on the last sector – which meant that in the ME (it still bugs me that I can’t be certain where it was! – does anyone remember where BA fly/flew that involved stopping in one ME country and then doing a bolt-on sector to another??) I had to enter the country, collect my bag, and check it back in. I still think the immigration officer had doubts about letting me in when I truthfully answered his question about why I was entering the country…

    “What impact on the industry/the traveller will revenue-based loyalty schemes have?”

    Well, two answers to this, depending on what sort of revenue-based scheme you are talking about:.
    * As regards minimum spend requirements:
    I am guessing the number of elites will drop (good for the rest of us elites who will remain so), and/or airlines will take advantage of the extra demand to jack up prices (bad), and/or passengers chasing status will pay for higher fares (and/or do mileage runs) therefore reducing seat availability for those of us on “normal” flights (bad)
    * As regards a pure revenue-based loyalty scheme:
    Oh, I would be so happy! The memsahib and I always fly long-haul in business class. Why the &@$! do I only get 25% more reward (both on status qualification and in reward points) than someone sitting at the back when I spend probably four times as much at a minimum, and often much more? Bring it on, I say

    “Do you think rewards based on distance or price are fairer?”

    I think I probably answered that already!!!

    “What do you think about revenue-based schemes for hotels brands such as Marriott and Hilton?”

    Ditto. Stupidly, I used to collect Asia Miles for hotel stays instead of accruing the points in the hotels’ own schemes. I loved the fact that with Hilton I could get both!!! I just wish hotels and airlines would carry this concept through to its logical conclusion and attribute a value to their points. As it is, flights are generally given a reward point “cost” according to distance, and hotel nights are given a reward point “cost” according to ‘class’ of the hotel. It really would be fairer to earn AND burn according to actual cost (both with airlines and hotels)

    So, there are my thoughts. Let’s make it all revenue/cost-based, for earning and burning. I would love that. BUT I can foresee problems with alignment within airline alliances, although I am sure these could be overcome. Airlines are about earning revenue (well, theoretically profit, but we know some airlines have problems on that front!) and although number of trips or distance flown are ways of recognising loyalty, they don’t necessarily reflect a passenger’s commercial benefit to the airline – which, from the airline’s perspective, is what they should be trying to encourage. A pure revenue-based model isn’t perfect either, of course – from an airline’s perspective, as I suggest above, I suspect the ideal yardstick would be profitability – but it seems to me to be much, much fairer than the systems which currently prevail in the major alliances

    PS. I support the notion put forward by peter19 that elites who are “a bit short” can buy a mileage top-up (subject to appropriate restrictions, of case) and I believe some airlines already allow this (AA for one: http://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/eliterenewal.jsp). I am sure this is something I would have used, and of course for the airline it is probably a lot more profitable than passengers doing mileage runs!


    TiredOldHack
    Participant

    This is interesting.

    I hit Gold with BA last year, and will maintain it this year (my TP year ends in September). However, a lot of the TPs needed to get there have been done by snapping up bargain tickets offered by Skyclub, or by doing the old dodge of starting (for instance) my journeys to South America in AMS.

    In the first instance, that’s really the same as me buying cheap economy tickets offered by the usual consolidators, but in the second instance, that’s me taking the best advantage I can of an airline’s own fare structure, and booking on their own website.

    If I find I can get a Club World ticket to Buenos Aires for slightly over two grand, instead of around four, then I would be seriously pee’d off if that airline decided to downgrade my loyalty points. They make the rules and set the fares, after all.

    I did my first mileage run last year, purely to hit Gold with BA. It was only LHR-AMS return, on a weekend break (hotel booked with BA too), and Dr. TOH and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

    BA’s present system ensures my customer loyalty. Really. If they moved to a revenue-based method of accounting, they would lose it. I would continue to snap up cheap premium tickets where and when I could, but I would scatter my largesse among a variety of airlines.


    BlackTower
    Participant

    IstanbulWarrior it’s CIV score at BA I was very high as I posted


    PerthWA
    Participant

    Johnharper… SQ’s PPS program has always been revenue based and as far as I’m aware still only counts business and first tickets towards status.


    LadyLlondon
    Participant

    LH has already identified their strategy and it’s to offload any European shorthaul that does not go through MUC or FRA (presumably they keep flights to or from MUC and FRA so as to keep the connecting traffic on LH), to Germanwings which is a different experience with fewer benefits than LH.

    I got the message and won’t invest in LH further.


    CXDiamond
    Participant

    The PPS club was always restricted to F & C class travellers and until SQ joined the *A the krisflyer scheme did not exist so that only goes back to about 2000. Until then SQ were and probably still are only interested in F & C travellers which may be why they differentiate their ground offering so much and if you only fly in economy you will never get PPS membership.

    The PPS club used to be points based but in I think 2006 it became a revenue based system requiring a spend of SGD25 000 to qualify on a yearly basis.


    RussShaw6
    Participant

    I thought that BA Executive Club was a ‘semi revenue’ loyalty scheme…whenever I buy BA tickets, I have the choice of fares at ‘reduced tier points’ and ‘full tier points’. That to me equates revenue and loyalty, so I am surprised they are not referenced. For the airlines, they must look at total customer profitability. That clearly includes revenue. But what about checked bags. When I travel in business or first, I never check a bag, which, theoretically, should save the airline money. Perhaps that could earn me more tier points, too.

    I am glad the US carriers are moving in this direction. UA hardly discriminates on points between business class and first class. I no longer hit the highest tiers on miles, but from a ‘total revenue’ perspective, even with fewer flights, I should be in their top tier Global Services segment each year (I came close last year, but was just shy of 100,000 miles…I thought my revenue would have justified it but they moved me back to 1K). BA does a better job of this, but, interestingly, over the past few years, they seem to be going the other way. However, I don’t think BA does a good job recognising its loyal customers, especially if they are London-based as there are so many of us.

    Bottom-line for me: the more revenue I generate for an airline, the more loyalty I expect to receive in return. Most other companies operate this way…why don’t the airlines.

    Personally, TOH’s post this morning summed up pretty much my thoughts on this topic.


    andystock
    Participant

    Remember that avios / BA actually trades at a profit. Just think about the amount of points that amex, Tesco, hotel groups, shell, topcashback.com (new), RAC, lathwaites, Avis purchase.


    IanFromHKG
    Participant

    Interesting divergence of opinions here. TOH and I don’t often disagree, but we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I want accrual to be revenue-based since I am a high spender. He wants it class/mileage-based (or at least, as regards BA, to stay with the current TP system) since he focuses on getting VFM and wants the same TPs as someone on full fare.

    Both valid perspectives, of course. I suppose the old acronym/saying YMMV applies quite literally in this instance!!

    BTW can someone confirm for me something that is implied in some posts on another forum – do BA give out TPs/Avios to pax travelling on redemption tickets?


    DavidGordon10
    Participant

    As far as the choice made by an airline is concerned (do you favour big spenders or frequent fliers?) that is the choice of their accountants and marketing people – not much we can do to influence that.

    As for us, the travellers, this thread shows again that we value different things. Some want and maybe need the reward flights; others place more importance on other benefits. I am in the latter group – if you make a large number of short-haul flights, then the lounge, the priority boarding, and so on are what counts. Also, if those who pay for your flights sometimes provide only the cheapest ticket for very long flights, the the lounge assumes even greater importance.

    So I am in the TOH camp – please keep rewarding me for sitting in the back, week in week out, on KLM and SAS!

    I have never done a mileage run – but, as the year end approaches, if there are two airlines that will do the flight I need, and I am at risk of losing the gold card on one of those airlines, then that is the one I will choose.


    PeterCoultas
    Participant

    IfmHK: I do not believe ANY program awards points on redemption flights though, given AndyS’s point about in payments from partners, maybe they should!
    As one who now pays my way rather than being a well-treated employee, cheap tickets and FF credits are both important. Sitting in the back I agree with DavidGordon and I’m no longer that bothered about long-haul in upper class on day flights with the massive proviso I can upgrade with points on night flights.
    I recognise the airlines accountants efforts but am surprised to find that so far in 2014 my 28000 flight miles (10000+ in business) have cost me a smidgen over 3 pence a mile.

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 74 total)
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