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Dishonesty at GlobalPass

inside flyer interview
Jul 24 2005

InsideFlyer interviews the President of GlobalPass who tries to explain the gutting of their program. The most offensive piece has been taking existing mileage holders and requiring them to earn additional points in order to use miles already in their accounts. The new program offers points for booking travel through their portal, which may even be more expensive than competitors, and then for each new point earned one can use an existing point.The explanation is that the program needs frequency from their members, people got too good a deal in the past, and the old model of awards they promised wasn’t good for the company so they shouldn’t have to live up to those promises.Not at all surprising, but also a good reminder that this has never been a trustworthy program. GlobalPass is not a…

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Mileage audits… on the rise?

airplane
Nov 23 2004

This morning’s New York Times carries a piece by Christopher Elliott on airline audits of frequent flyer accounts. Suspicious activity can cause an airline to freeze an account and investigate. The piece suggests that audits are on the rise, but provides no evidence of this other than that audits happen. It speculates that airline financial problems have spurred more audits, but I know of no carrier that sees auditing of accounts as a meaningful new revenue source. Instead, if audits are becoming more common it’s likely due to technology. If you don’t provide your frequent flyer number on an airline reservation at booking, and then after the flight submit the boarding passes to the airline you flew as well as their partners, the various carriers are much more likely to catch that now than they…

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