Tag Archives for united airlines.
United admitted during their earnings call that dynamic award redemption is about their own financial bottom line – not customer benefit – and that it doesn’t actually help customers book more awards.
Status does a great job motivating customers who buy coach, or at least fly coach a substantial portion of the time – for instance the road warrior whose company will spring for business class internationally once or twice a year but has a rule of 6 hours or more for premium cabin so domestic trips are mostly out up front.
Status does almost nothing to motivate someone who buys all premium cabin tickets. When elite status spending requirements are so high they’re met primarily by people who buy first class, elite status is meaningless.
Do you remember when people felt so attached to an airline brand that they paid more money to spend extra time flying, just to demonstrate enough loyalty for when they’d fly in the coming year? It’s hard to say there hasn’t been something lost.
While Snopes actually has an entry debunking whether United Airlines has an ‘armed seating and apparel division’ the airline is now coming under fire for doing nothing over a passenger’s t-shirt.
On yesterday’s United flight UA824 from Los Angeles to Boston a passenger was wearing a t-shirt advocating hanging of journalists.
United Airlines has declared that miles no longer matter at all – a strange position for MileagePlus to take. Distance flown no longer matters for earning miles. Redeeming miles is more revenue-based with the elimination of award charts. And now even qualifying for elite status will be based on spending starting next year.
You can earn status by spending more than before and counting up the number of flights you take, or just based on spending alone. Here are 11 takeaways from this historic change.
United will stop counting how far you fly for earning elite status. United will no longer have 25,000 mile, 50,000 mile, 75,000 mile and 100,000 mile status.
Instead – starting in 2020 for customers earning status for the 2021 program year – United will count how many flights you take and how much you spend. And if you want to earn status without taking a lot of flights, just spend more.
While United certainly hasn’t promised that won’t ever change, they haven’t made any changes to their thinking. For now this appears to be a false alarm, but without published award charts the program in effect makes no promises as all about the future. Even though this FAQ answer doesn’t suggest the program is being devalued, we can assume that’s the direction it will continue to head.
You’re supposed to be at your seat for takeoff and landing of course, and there’s no seat belt in the lavatory. However on Wednesday’s United Airlines UA1554 non-stop from Washington National to San Francisco, the flight had to divert to Denver when a passenger got stuck in the lavatory.
The passenger had to sit on the throne for landing, and United mechanics were sent in for a rescue.
United shared this morning that they’re revamping their confirmed regional and global upgrade certificates that Platinum elites and higher are able to take advantage of effective December 4. They’re introducing a new upgrade points system to replace certificates called PlusPoints, and existing banked certificates will convert to PlusPoints at that time.
I received a briefing on the changes from Luc Bondar, United’s Vice President of Loyalty who is in charge of MileagePlus. Here’s how upgrades are changing.
The issue was caused by a gate agent error and, it seems, poor employee communication and customer service coupled with a misunderstanding. But it’s the customer who suffered – but only emotional suffering and inconvenience, no beatings, and that’s progress.
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 »
