Southwest’s New Cash and Points Scheme: A Bad Deal for Travelers? [Roundup]

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. United’s struggles on Pacific routes may be related to the prices that they are charging and the equipment that they are using. They seem to be set on often providing narrow seats in their widebody airplanes per a search on SeatGuru. I have generally found United to price several hundred dollars more than the lowest cost seats in coach. The combination of price and cramped seats is not appealing to me and I expect others see the situation the same way. Another factor for travelers from Asian countries is that Asian country airlines are more likely to have flight attendants who are bilingual or even trilingual.

  2. Yea United needs to improve both it’s hard and soft product for long haul flights. Seats are narrow and food is school cafeteria quality compared to other carriers.

  3. Gary Kelly and his band of beancounting buddies should all be fired, and the sooner the better!

    Gary took the original Rapids Rewards Program – the very best in the Airline Industry with a free ticket for 8 roundtrips or 16 legs – and ruined it so they could change to the AA type system which gave credits for $$$ spent.

    Now, he and his buddies have conjured up (down?) a way to reduce the value of the RR points.

    Gary and the current CEO are out of their lane; they should redirect their focus on S*** that matters, like spending $$$$$$$$$ on State of the Art Software and infrastructure which they totally ignored prior to the December meltdown; all so they could prop up the stock price “for shareholders,” which is a lie, and the beancounters all made out like bandits with their lucrative Stock Options. NOTE: The stock is below where it was prior to the debacle.

    If the SWA board had any sense left at all, or could even remember Herb’s legacy, they would fire the entire band of them!

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