I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little bit but only the employee who's traveling will notice. Then it makes perfect sense: the employee directs a little extra money from the treasury to the airline, the airline provides a kickback to the employee in the form of a little comfort or attention, and that explains the whole miles phenomenon.
My mom used to travel constantly for a Sales Engineer job, and in her telling the opportunity to arrange your air travel for optimal frequent flyer miles was an acknowledged piece of compensation for the hellish travel schedule.
I suppose it depends on the business but at my Fortune 50 we're required to use "lowest logical airfare". You can force a choice of Southwest over United by choosing one airport over another, and there's enough wiggle room to let you fly at your preferred times but overall it's designed to prevent gaming and escalates things for review if you try.
But unless you're a highly placed executive no one travels on the company dime often enough to bother with air miles anyway; airlines require far too much travel for even the bottom-most loyalty tier.
This isn't really a true statement. Marketing and enterprise sales folks travel a lot on the company dime. I'm on the engineering and consulting staff in my company, and I travel a decent amount, mostly domestic. Most of our engineers do frequent on-sites. One might not be able to get status, but the air miles definitely add up. I've been able to get more than a few free flights and upgrades. I would say it's worth bothering about.
Yes, my bad. I just meant at my employer; we've invested heavily in telepresence, so only the bigwigs here get to travel with any regularity. And I was really trying to say without regular travel you won't end up with a meaningful status. For example United has a raft of tiers so unless you're [1] 1K or Global Services [2] you're literally not at the front of the queue for anything. Even their "Group 1" / "Group 2" boarding system meant to speed things up has a giant asterisk that reads "except 1K/GS, they go before anyone else."
[1] I'm using the colloquial "you" here to really mean "one" which sounds very stiff and formal to me. I don't literally mean you.
[2] https://thepointsguy.com/2017/08/united-global-services-in-2...
I'm pretty sure he was talking about the company he works at, not the company you work at.
One year, I flew RT SFO-Singapore (16,000 miles RT) and SFO-Tel-Aviv (10,200 miles RT). Due to getting a really good deal on economy tickets, those two tickets were less than $3,000 total and thus I didn't get even the most basic status level.
I have quite a few friends who fly primarily United but credit flights to other partner airlines where the requirements aren't as high. Aegean used to be a very popular way to easily get Star Alliance Gold status, and you were able to earn it purely by flying United.
As for spending with the credit card, unfortunately that isn't an option for me since my company pays for many of my tickets. And they will purchase the cheapest ticket, which often means buying it on the partner airline (e.g. Lufthansa plane but cheaper if booked as an Air Canada).
Thanks for the tip on Aegean. I checked it out and looks like 24,000 miles on partner airlines without any other restrictions to get Star Alliance Silver! Looks like a winner!
Status programs are really in a sad state on airlines. They are supposed to be a reward to customers but many times end up feeling punitive. For the airlines like United that have the minimum dollars spent requirement, I wish they would just make that the sole criterion, which would at least simply things!
2 Asia trips won't even meet the minimum number of flights, let alone qualify you for any status.
4 trips on Star Alliance from the US to Asia might get you the lowest status, which does essentially nothing for you. You probably would need another 8 trips to make it to Gold which is where it actually means something.
Most programs have their status levels at 25k miles for lowest and 100k for highest. So, ignoring spend, 2 round-trips to HKG will earn you Silver status on United.
4 trips in business class (double miles) will earn you 110k miles, enough for 1K status.
I had 3 trips from North America to South America in the space of a year for recruiting, hiring and training and it nudged me into United's bottom tier, Silver. One more trip might have pushed me into Gold. Considering there's three tiers above that when you include 1K and Global Services and you can see other than possibly boarding in Group 2 there's not much point in the frequent flyer program. I requested upgrade on a flight from SFO to IAH recently just to see what would happen. I was something like number 58 on a 70+ person list. Again - all just anecdata.
Could someone jumpstart the process by getting some status tier via credit card? No doubt. Can they push it further using mileage runs? Of course! There's a flyertalk forum dedicated to it. But airlines are on to those shenanigans and the days of mileage running yourself into top tier status without a great deal of effort including getting one's employer to book flights that aren't the bottom-most fare classes as those yield the least in rewards. In fact there is at least one fare class (N) that gives no mileage or points at all.
People working in hardware manufacturing do!
It’ll be hard to earn enough on domestic flights, but I eeck out a $50 gift card every couple years for my annual trans-Atlantic flights.
Don’t forget the “Air Canada” model of IPOing your frequent flyer program, nearly bankrupting it, and then buying it back for a fraction.
There is nothing I do in my life regularly where I'm more restricted, or more closely related to a rigid caste system than air travel.
Every time you take a flight, for somewhere between 3 and 20 hours, you're told exactly where to stand, where to sit, what you can and can't wear, what you can and can't carry.
Almost everything about frequent flyer status is about making these limitations slightly less terrible. You're still going to be stuck in a shitty seat for several hours, but your seat might have slightly more legroom. You're still told when you can get on the plane, but you'll be at the front of the line. You still have to go through an invasive security process, but you'll go quicker, and it'll be slightly less invasive.
Most of these are stupid little things (and there are other much more objectively valuable perks, like waived change fees, improved options in the event of cancellations or delays, free checked baggage and the like), but in the artificial, restrictive and status-driven world of air travel, they're so nice to have.
All that said, I still think Southwest is the best domestic airline to travel and not be treated like a complete peon, assuming you don't fly enough to earn status with a traditional carrier.
On the other hand, it no longer takes months to travel West and half your family generally doesn't die of dysentery on the way there.
Most people were merely moving from house to house, sometime town to town. It was not frequent, and everybody knew it would take time so there was not that much time pressure.
Today, a lot of people are expected to be able to travel hundreds of miles, regularly, in short period of times, with not that much rest between those times, and be on schedule. Schedule that is precise to a few hours.
Appart from nomads and a few merchants (again traveling a way slower pace, frequency and lower expectations), most people just stayed put.
And yet the state of modern air travel is such that it's a still a toss-up which is worse.
While you are moving, the speeds are far lower--70 mph rather than 350-550 knots. The safety factor is lower; you're more likely to die in a car wreck than a plane wreck per distance unit.
But there's also no security queue or baggage check for a road trip. There's no airport ground transportation. There is a form of check-in for seat determination, but online and other early check-ins are specifically disallowed by the "shotgun rules". You save a fixed amount of time per trip with car travel, while airliners save time based on total trip distance.
So for me, airline travel beats car travel only beyond a certain distance threshold, which more or less directly equates to the travel time. I now set my threshold at two days. If I can't drive there within two travel days, I fly, or just don't go. Which means I'm now potentially adding hotel room charges to mileage expenses. That's about a 1000 mile radius for "easy" driving days and 1600 miles for "hard" driving days, which require relief drivers.
This is directly driven by my perceived worsening of the air travel experience. Sorting the customers out into service tiers based on how much they spend does not encourage me to spend more or to be loyal to a specific airline. It encourages me to pursue alternatives to the bad service that I know I will get.
One of my big life rules is "don't feed pigeons." I mean it metaphorically, of course. Pigeons are machines for turning food into pigeon shit and more pigeons, and I'm not a big fan of either. A clearer version is something like, "don't reward something creating a problem in a way that deepens the problem."
So you've persuaded me that I should never join one of these things.
They've structured it to be shitty because that's what the market wants: the lowest cost product. When I fly the major carriers, I often still see the "premium economy" seats available for purchase at check-in. Those cost an extra $50-100 to get extra legroom, early boarding, etc. These are the same perks that they provide for free to their entry-level frequent fliers.
It turns out that most people just aren't willing to pay 10-20% extra for a better experience. They'd rather buy the cheapest ticket, suck it up for a couple hours, and grouse about how bad air travel is afterwards.
By not joining a frequent flyer program, you're not stymieing them or anything. Non-loyalty customers looking for the lowest price is their bread and butter for filling up the back half of the plane. The service will be perfunctory and the experience will be marginal, because that's what most people are willing to pay for.
Truer words were never spoken. I had to book a Spirit flight home unexpectedly, and while I'd heard nothing but bad things about them, I found it a perfectly acceptable experience. Of course they charge for everything -- the ticket was $100 cheaper than United. Where do people think that discount comes from?
Kind of. It's what the current market wants. But through anticompetitive mergers and deregulation, the airlines have lobbied and gamed the laws to create a market tilted heavily towards their own preferences, that the public overwhelmingly hates.
The Amish around me were allowed to have electricity, but it could not be inside the house.
So they built a porch, turned it into a greenhouse looking room, and put all their electronics out on it. I have seen a refrigerator, laptop, and even a TV on their porch.
They also had electricity doing some stuff in their barn. I think it was mainly lights but I never went in there, just saw lights on 24/7. They milked the cows by hand (so I was told), plowed the fields with horses (unless they were harassing a local farmer to use their tractor and equipment), and lived like the textbook amish family.
They came from Pennsylvania right before buying the farmland. So I have no idea if they came from a particular sect that allows that, or what. I just know from talking with them (being neighbors and all), they were allowed to have certain stuff, just not allowed to have it in specific places.
I had several amish neighbors like this too. Nice people though except when they assumed they could use your farming equipment without asking and would get extremely defensive if you said no. That was just the fathers though. The wives and children were really great.
But yeah, status, PreCheck, Clear, etc. are all "Can I remove this friction in my life?"
Right here. I was asked the other day if I had a rewards number at 7/11 and if I wanted to sign up for one, if I was "really sure" after I said no twice. 7/11. I buy coffee there getting off the train. It's a convenience store. This....is getting ridiculous IMO. Amazon is getting their tentacles wrapped around so much (mild sarc), but the retail experience out in the world lately is just as awful.
I'm either bothered endlessly to "hey go get one more of those things it's only 2/$4" when I only want one, I'm asked to sign up for a rewards program, or calling support means I'm hounded for a "customer feedback survey" when all I wanted was a dang cup of coffee.
Basically, I add my frequent flier number to the booking form online and that's it. When I hit Bronze (it's a couple of long flights or so) I don't need to do anything, I just get to skip the queue at checkin and (airport depending) security.
There's no sales, no emails, no upsell, my (travelling) life is just better after a couple of flights.
Live in Pullman, WA? You're flying Alaska anyway. Salt Lake City, UT? Get yourself a Delta number.
The tricky places are where there are lots of competing carriers. San Francisco with it's...pseudo-hubness for a number of airlines, Washington DC, etc.
That said, when I need to get a flight somewhere else and there's no BA or AA flight convenient I just get the flight I want to get and don't sweat the loss of status building.
As a SFO-based frequent flyer, if you fly to numerous destination (instead of doing the same commute each trip), your choices are likely: fly United or take an extra connection.
Unlike say, Denver or Salt Lake for United and Delta respectively.
I'd also put SEA in this category, especially with Alaska and Delta no longer playing nice in the sandbox.
Maybe one day I'll book a flight with Avios, and when I do I'll have enough for sure, but I don't treat them like a perk.
Agree with the BA tools/site being terrible, it seems to be pretty consistent that this is the case across airlines.
Another thing though about Avios is BA's constant errorsion of benefits. Every year or so they send out an email saying 'we asked our customers and they said they wanted more choice', followed by saying they're removing free drinks and meals, reducing the hours hot food is available in lounges etc. I'd respect these decisions much more if they were honest and said 'our shareholders want us to cut costs!
Edit- Is the crucial difference that the vendor ends up losing the money rather than the bank in the case of credit cards?
Comfort and less time wasted are very valuable for the wealthy (in terms of $ they're willing to spend without monetary return, since it ends up being a smaller percentage of their disposable income).
For business travellers, it's efficiency, fewer missed meetings, and psychological comfort, allowing maximum focus on business concerns.
Push notification 24hrs in advance, check in and automatically download boarding pass.
Phone has your boarding pass at the airport, as well as push notifications for gate changes.
Phone has the baggage carousel information and terminal maps with food and restrooms called out.
But that's peanuts and will never add up to much because I only fly a few times a year and it's usually on different airlines. The real miles game is accumulating points from other purchases, and churning those into free travel and such. Both generating and redeeming points in those volumes is a lot of work -- I've done it and eventually decided it wasn't worth my time.
Ditto for credit cards. Given the model of credit cards, it doesn’t make sense to leave money on the table. If you shop at Amazon or Target, leaving 5% of you business on the table doesn’t make sense.
For me, if I just refused to participate then I would do the same flying with the same airline and just wouldn't get any of the free benefits... That's before free flights and upgrades that I can then purchase with the points.
So it makes a lot of sense then to get a credit card that earns extra points into the same account for purchases I would have made anyway. I'm now starting to think about my next trip, which will be business class to five countries in Europe (from Australia). Would cost about $10-15K in airfares (which I would never have paid myself) but I'll have to pay probably about a grand in taxes and most of the points I've gathered over about two years of work travel and credit card purchases I would have done anyway.
At the end of the day, the cost of this is already baked into the services, so you're paying for it whether you participate or not!
Did what would have cost like $300k in flights and hotels for maybe a few grand across 5 vacations and still have like a million miles left over.
It was a huge time suck though, keeping up with blogs, subreddits, secret Slack groups etc. Booking the really outrageous first class flights is hard to do unless you are constantly checking availability and can take a vacation like anytime you want.
Would do again, a little too busy to now though.
Extra cognitive load is real.
I extend this everywhere. I don't have enough a single points card anywhere.
The only thing I use is Canadian Tire money because it's fun and stupid but they're even replacing that with a stupid points card.
I don't bother with the rewards programs I'd hardly use or with rewards programs which have "burned" me in the past.
Example 1: If I don't go to your movie theatre chain very often, I'm not signing up for your "CineGreat Program" or whatever you call yours this year. I'm also not a Frequent Flyer -- and airlines buy and sell each other in and out of bankruptcy so often that who knows that rats nest of points anyway on top of that. But the grocery store I shop at regularly down the street? Sure thing sign me up.
Example 2: AAA hotel discounts might be nice, but when you can't help me on the side of the road at midnight when that was the exact reason why I signed up then you can nevermind that renewal for the rest of my life.
I have a JetBlue card that I use for everything non-food spending. That gets me a free flight a year.
I have a capital one card I use for food. I get rewards. Every few months I get $25 back. I could hyper optimize, but nah, I'm happy with the system.
I have friends who do the whole shebang and I agree, it's too much: the focus is to keep you focused on pulling out that card because that's what CC co's want. More spending.
I am traveling a lot more for work, and I'm considering switching to a different card, but I still have no plans of going "all out" and card hopping.
Yet somehow I'm the sucker who doesn't get it.
I tend toward cattle class seats to avoid being on the wrong side of the class system, even though my knees complain.
I fly for work a bit and other than the initial sign up for the programs and giving my various reward account numbers to my company travel agent once, there's no cognitive load to me. I don't go out of my way to maximize the goodies, but I've received enough perks here and there that the whopping 10 minutes I've invested into each signup process has more than paid for itself.
You can't handle the cognitive load of attaching a unique identifier to your account? You don't need to pick an airline or game credit cards - just sign up next time you book a flight with a major airline and you will build up points in the background.
If you just 'attach a unique identifier to your account' you aren't going to get much out of a frequent flyer programme.
If you're on a consistent route (ex: SF to NYC or London) picking an airline and sticking with it when you fly in every week/month will absolutely rack up points.
Do not want.
I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction.
I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, so I figure I'm doing ok once I account for the cost of my time and for situations where they'd get me to pay more.