A million miles and all I got was a stupid piece of paper.

[Edward]

ff:

Wow this thread went in the wrong direction in a hurry. The OP stated his displeasure with with a computer generated certificate recognizing his 1,000,000 miles w/US. Now its about pay parity, buy on board and Pineys commute times!!! Geeze folks............

I got to agree. Time to get back on topic.

 

[2clippedwings]

I had a chance to chat with another million miler, also the recipient of a computer generated card from the company, just a few days ago.

It seems to come down to RECOGNITION.

We are supposed to use our passengers' names in first class. Our Shuttle passengers enjoy being recognized.
A customer who spends a great deal of money on our airline deserves special recognition from the company. I'd be happy to approach a million miler in flight, if I knew they were on board, to say "Thank you for flying a million miles with us."

If I received only a piece of paper acknowledging my investment of a million miles, I'd be looking for a company that better appreciated my investment.

 

[jcw]

I think Tempe should do a study on how much it costs to send the piece of paper.

They could save money not sending this document.

What are you suppose to do - frame it and hang it in your office - for spending all that time on US flying a million miles you get a piece of paper.

What a joke! However, the jokes never cease to amaze me.

 

[N965VJ]

I’ve seen a mahogany award plaque for a UA FF. Late 60s or early 70s IIRC. I’ve also seen some Ionosphere Club plaques from EA.

Out of curiosity, what kind of CP amenity kit did Tempe hand out the last go-around.

 

[US1YFARE]

Well, I got my DM GOLD card today and the letter said, Congratulations on achieving Gold Status. :blink: What idiots.

 

[eolesen]

Million Mile status on AA gets you:

Lifetime Gold status - You'll get a new GLD card each year, with a 1MM logo on it, unless of course you qualify for PLT or EXP, in which case you'll get the regular PLT or EXP package for that year.
Eight electronic upgrades deposited into your account
New luggage tags reflecting Gold/MM status

Two million program-to-date miles (any source) earns you Lifetime Platinum status.

Three million and beyond... various gifts including glasses from Tiffany and a wine-bottle stopper....

My quarter-million miles over the past two years have cost me about $100K. If someone spends $400K over the course of X years, they deserve a little more recognition than a form letter & certificate...


As for the idea that someone will notice PB's absence... I doubt they would. I know people who stopped flying Airline X as gazillion milers and never heard back from the airline except to be told that they didn't earn status for that year...

 

[SS255]

AA counts all earned miles toward "million miler" status. US counts BIS miles only.

UA also counts BIS miles only, but for your million, you get lifetime Premiere Executive. I believe at 2MM UA also confers lifetime RCC membership. US gives you a certificate.

 

[jimcfs]

AA counts all earned miles toward "million miler" status. US counts BIS miles only.

UA also counts BIS miles only, but for your million, you get lifetime Premiere Executive. I believe at 2MM UA also confers lifetime RCC membership. US gives you a certificate.

The "new and improved" US counts BIS only. The "old and respected" CCY-based US counted all earned miles. Under the old rules, I'm over 2M... but to the "what have you done for me lately" folks, I only have about 700K BIS. Hey, at least I got a leather luggage tag for my 1M. That's better than a worthless piece of paper with DP's copied signature, isn't it?

 

[US1YFARE]

I am well over 1M under the old system and got nothing either. I still can't believe they CONGRATULATED me for dropping to Gold Status. :blink:

 

[phlus2]

I am well over 1M under the old system and got nothing either. I still can't believe they CONGRATULATED me for dropping to Gold Status. :blink:

Hey - at least you are still gold status - more than I can say. Or maybe I am the luckier one - hmmmmmmmmmmm what a thought!

 

[freedom]

I think Tempe should do a study on how much it costs to send the piece of paper.

They could save money not sending this document.

I completely agree , in fact did you hear tempe just hired a new vice president to look into the matter ?

Word on the street is their thinking about making the piece of paper into a PDF document that could be emailed to the customer , that way they could print it out on their OWN computer and hang it where they like , or perhaps just keep it as a nice screen saver ..

 

[Bear96]

The "new and improved" US counts BIS only. The "old and respected" CCY-based US counted all earned miles. Under the old rules, I'm over 2M... but to the "what have you done for me lately" folks, I only have about 700K BIS.

Serious question, but are you complaining about only counting BIS? I ask because on Flyertalk I have seen plenty of posts (at least in some airlines' forums; not sure about LCC) where FFers complain about getting certain recognition based on non-BIS miles. A lot of FTers seem to think only "real" FFers should get some of these perks, and it is somehow "cheating" to treat non-BIS miles the same as others.

Whatever the case, I have no doubt that with the FWers (Frequent Whiners) here, whatever LCC does would be criticized. If LCC started counting non-BIS miles, I am sure there would be posts about how that is unfair to LCC's truly most loyal customers and would let Ma and Pa Kettle get status or awards because of their shopping at the Piggly Wiggly and that shows how incompetent LCC is.

 

[Bear96]

First off you can NEVER make a post that doesn't insult someone or something.

Me I'm a work in progress and I admit it. I've been posting less partly in an effort to control my temper and partly because Tempe isn't worth the bandwidth. Far as that goes neither are you.

Chill out there, Mr. Center-of-the-Universe. My post/question wasn't even directed at you.

You and others like you fail to grasp the most basic single underlying fact and that is that FREQUENT FLYERS PAY THE GOD DArN BILLS PERIOD!!!!!

I understand your point of view. (I disagree that ALL FFers, just by virtue of them flying a lot, "pay the bills period." Some FFers who just pay the lowest fares out there probably do not "pay the bills." But that is a different topic, and for purposes of this conversation, I agree that many higher-yielding FFers do pay the bills.)

Not sure what the rest of your ranting post had to do with the topic at hand, but my point is this:

Is someone who racks up a lot of miles and points by doing things other than flying really and necessarily among the most valued customers of an airline? I would posit no, because that customer is not giving the airline a lot of revenue to actually fly. I understand the airline gets some revenue from that customer through the FF program, but I would think the more valued customer would be the one who gives the airline more revenue from actually flying than from using a certain credit card to buy underwear at JC Penney.

Apparently I have struck a nerve though.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Is someone who racks up a lot of miles and points by doing things other than flying really and necessarily among the most valued customers of an airline? I would posit no, because that customer is not giving the airline a lot of revenue to actually fly. I understand the airline gets some revenue from that customer through the FF program, but I would think the more valued customer would be the one who gives the airline more revenue from actually flying than from using a certain credit card to buy underwear at JC Penney.

I would tend to agree with you - just because a person flies a lot of miles doesn't necessarily mean that they are a high-yield passenger (though the average FF is). And while I don't have any numbers to back it up, I'd think that miles earned flying provide more revenue/mile than miles earned by shopping at partner companies.

However, US seems to be doing whatever it can to increase the number of miles it sells to partner companies by having promotion on top of promotion tied to partner merchants, while reducing the number of miles it gives for actually flying the airline. Seems backwards to me, and US lagging behind most of the other legacies in RASM growth YoY seems to support that conclusion.

Jim

 

[bofie]

Earlier it was asked "why don't FFs leave if they think it is so bad?"

Why don't I leave? Sadly I've become resigned to my fate. I can't find better schedules out of PHL for continental US flying. I'm trapped. I'll get my million card (it should at least be on the DM card somewhere) this year.

However for Europe and Hawaii (and Asia), where I buy paid F tix, NFW I'm flying on US till the product gets better.