Via Lucky, Frontier is offering double elite qualifying miles during the month of December, registration required using promo code DBLEQ.

I like Lucky’s comment, “[N]o, the legacies won’t match.” Of course not, American has moved to shrink its elite ranks by making changes to million miler qualification effective December 1.

In general airlines haven’t felt the need to run double qualifying miles promotions the past couple of years because they’ve shrunk capacity, their load factors have been up, and their elite ranks have not shrunk.

Delta, with ‘rollover’ qualify8ing miles, is the carrier in least need of making such a move. They’re also most aggressive in offering alternative methods of earning qualifying miles, perhaps followed by US Airways which will let you do it via Grand Slam, outright purchase, or re-upping on club membership.

And United, having combined with Continental and now offering four elite tiers, isn’t going to drive this either.

So absent targeted route bonuses, we have little Frontier aggressively marketing towards its elites. They’ve done similar creative things, such as offering folks who were close to qualification or requalification the ability to re-up with a single flight. And their elite ranks aren’t that unmanagable nor is it difficult for them to deliver on expectations since they don’t even have a first class cabin to upgrade folks into.

Still, they do a lot to work with what they have, such as offering elites free DirecTV, extra legroom seating, and complimentary premium beverages. I’m not a fan of Frontier Early Returns on the redemption side, and I don’t like the lack of a front cabin, but they’re a small program that gets customer service and works hard to please their members.