How Badly Will American’s Move to Revenue-Based Earning Hurt Your Mileage Balance?

by Gary Leff

Nov 08 2015

In the simplest version, just know that the basic earning in a revenue-based frequent flyer program has required 20 cents a mile to break even with a mileage-based earning system. And passengers aren’t paying the airlines an average of 20 cents a mile to fly.

Of course, when airlines have switched to revenue-based mileage earning it’s been worse than this — fewer miles award on average, but they’ve also taken the opportunity to diminish the value of the miles you do earn. And that puts the lie to the idea that they’re “rewarding high value customers.” They’re not, they’re only devaluing high value customers less.

But let’s look at the actual numbers for American’s expected plan for a year from now…

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How Does This Even Happen? Woman Fails to Get Off Plane, Takes 14 Hour Multi-Stop Journey

by Gary Leff

Nov 08 2015

A woman with dimentia arrived at her destination, but failed to get off the plane. Southwest Airlines didn’t notice. A next flight’s passengers boarded, the plane took off, and she wound up flying a total of 14 hours before winding up back in Greenville, South Carolina.

The passenger’s daughter says this incident is “national security biting the dust” but I think that’s somewhat hyperbolic…

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Should Frequent Flyer Programs Reward Based on Distance or Spending?

by Gary Leff

Nov 08 2015

There’s nothing sacrosanct about miles per se. Sure, it doesn’t make sense for a program that gives out points based on how much you spend to call those points ‘miles’. But Capital One does it, so why can’t Delta?

At best miles are a proxy for a loyalty relationship: more miles flown is more of one’s life spent in an airline’s metal tube.

But are miles even the best way to reward frequent airline passengers?

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Boeing Pitches a Fit After Losing Out on $80 Billion Defense Contract

by Gary Leff

Nov 07 2015

When you ride DC metro, the ads you see aren’t predominantly for consumer products. Most people riding the metro can’t afford to buy weapons systems, but you see ads for jet fighters anyway. The most expensive subway ads are in the Pentagon station and inside Capital South. They’re targeting very expensive ads to very narrow audiences: Defense Department procurement officers, and Congressional staff on just the right committee.

Since government bureaucrats can use their power to reward friends, to secure themselves future employment, or simply take kickbacks, there are a whole set of regulations constraining how government contracts should be awarded. Usually they have to go to the lowest bidder, but there are rules for selecting a higher cost bidder. Were those rules followed to the letter?

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Do AAdvantage Program Changes Matter? It’s the Unknown Shoes to Drop that Should Worry

by Gary Leff

Nov 07 2015

We now know much of the changes that American AAdvantage will implement right away (to earning status during 2016 for the 2017 program year) and in a year (to mileage-earning for flights). But there are still areas where we can expect changes and American hasn’t told us what to expect. How they handle those issues will determine the value of the AAdvantage program more than the changes that have already leaked.

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