United trimming mileage rewards

Another standard practice of airline customer service is flying by the wayside. Starting in July, United Airlines no longer will award a minimum credit of 500 miles to its frequent-flier passengers who take ...

[Ivan]

This is the way it should have been all the time. Its no wonder they are in trouble. They should double the price of the tickets so they can make money. They have become Grayhound buses with wings.

[Thomas]

United makes it so hard to redeem miles, there award miles are already useless in the first place.

I hope the latest oil crisis puts this terible airline out of business, that will open up alot of competition at O'hare and end the United and American stranglehold there.

[Mike]

United loves to stick it to thier passengers. The first one to raise the fares, shrink the legroom, raise fees, and yet they make you feel like they are doing you a favor by letting you fly on their plane.

WAKE UP UNITED before you loose your customers

[drive 1 foot from bikes]

United has already lost its customers. I was Premier Exec for many years. I got fed up with the delays at ORD and finally made the move to Midway. Though I hate the white trash crowds at least my flight takes off on time. United is like a bad marriage, just divorce yourself from them. It feels so great to be out of that bad relationship where I gave so much to them for so little in return.

[J Jackson]

I switched to American several years ago because the United Frequent Flyer program just was not redemption friendly. Although, I have no problem with this move and would expect AA to follow suit soon.

[Tom]

Frequent flyer miles are just welfare for the rich. Has anyone ever paid taxes on the value of their free tickets?

[Thomas]

"The IRS will not treat as taxable income an employee´s personal use of frequent flyer miles and other promotional items received as the result of business travel - at least for now, according to Announcement 2002-18, released on Feb. 20"
And the rich could absolutely care less about frequent flyer miles. The only people who usually worry about them our business travelers. You will never save up enough miles flying once or twice a year unless you have one of the airline credit cards.

[Thomas]

drive 1 foot from bikes wrote:

United has already lost its customers. I was Premier Exec for many years. I got fed up with the delays at ORD and finally made the move to Midway. Though I hate the white trash crowds at least my flight takes off on time. United is like a bad marriage, just divorce yourself from them. It feels so great to be out of that bad relationship where I gave so much to them for so little in return.

And on Southwest you are guaranteed a 737 and not crammed into an RJ. How was the regional jet idea born. Were they sitting around at a corporate jet factory one day and an engineer looked at it and said, "how many people do you think we could cram in there if we had to?" You have 50 people crammed on a jet that was originally designed to seat 12.

[John M]

With the sexiness of the jet compared to the prop combined with the ATR turboprop's inability to de-ice properly (see AA crash near DeMotte, IN), more jets were introduced. A recent Business Week article states that more props may be used...here's the link
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/c...

[Airsick]

The airlines courted us and our business with promises that our loyalty would be rewarded down the road {or up in the air} at a later date. OK, so we {frequent flyers} played the game. We flew more expensive flights [such as on American or United] for years and we racked up FF-miles for deferred gratification, instead of using People's Express, Laker Airways and/or the numerous no-frills, vastly cheaper start-ups. Well, here we are / I am, a Lifetime AAdvantage Gold FF with over a million miles and what do I get for it? Bupkiss{off}, e.g. fewer upgrade seats available [and those are THE only perks really worth the effort - or miles], not meals, a
'free' drink, no, not much of anything.
Thank goodness the 'Open Skies' agreement is taking effect. Only through competition can Americans {both we nationals and flyers thereof} can we hope to get any service. Virigin America - I look forward to your arrival {and departures} at O'Hare.
Three class seating configurations on domestic flights, as opposed to front of the aircraft or steerage in those darn MD80's wouldn't hurt. OK, don't feed us, don't give us pillows or blankets, don't provide newspapers or magazines, don't give us much of anything - other than personal comfort in a seat that has some width and leg room. Cut out the galley entirely, but, more seat-space is what's needed. Getting up at 5am to drive {crawl} to O'Hare, to go through TSA security, to wait at the gate, to board the aircraft, to sit, to push-off, to taxi, to wait, to fly, to circle, to taxi, to pull up to a gate - eventually, on a flight from Chicago to LAX or SFO means sitting in the aircraft for in excess of 6 hours [if not more]. I've got a proposal{s} for the airlines, go ahead, treat us like air-frieght once and for all and be done with it. Charge us by the pound. This is easy; take a base/minimum seat charge and add on for every pound of personal, carry-on and/or checked baggage. My wife's 5" tall and weighs less than 100 lbs. Her clothing and, therefore, baggage, is proportionate in weight. My son is also 5" and under 125lbs. Why should I pay the same fare for the two of them when - combined, they don't weight what I weight, the two of their luggage don't add up to my luggage and they - combined, don't take up the space that I take up? A weight to fare ratio would be fair.
One final thought, is there any reason some rows in the aircraft can't be configured into family bench-style seating? Taking the three of us in my family as an example, when the three of us fly together we could fit into the space allowed for two business or first class seats in a bench-style seating configuration. We don't need armrests between us or even necessarily split-bottom seats. Just give us bench-seating with seat-belts and allow for different seat-back positions {should one or more wish to recline}- making sure, however, that there's sufficient leg room .
This isn't rocket-science, but, it IS about erganomics:
Lose the galley on flights of less than 4 hours {we'll bring our own water and sack food on the plance}.
Provide some bench-seating options {at lower costs of course}.
Charge us by the pound{s}- in the aggregate.
Yep, let's get real here.
Value for money works both ways. Wake up and smell your fat in the frying pan. Otherwise, I'm still hopeful we'll get a national grid of high speed rail before I die and 'am looking around for some fractional ownership to participate in.

[Eric]

I've flown from Chicago to Detroit every two weeks for the past 8 years and don't use the miles too often, but have found reasons to fly another carrier in the last 6 months. This may be the straw that broke the Camel's back. 40,000 + miles a year being reduced when I've already had doubts about this airline. Looks like American may get a new customer starting in a month.

[andrew p]

There are fees on award tickets, unless you are 1K or Global Services.

The real irony is that United and other carriers complain about the number of outstanding redeemable miles creating a balance sheet liability, but at the same time give them out like candy via non-flight outlets (dining, shopping, rental cars, hotels, mortgages, wireless plans, etc). So, instead of reducing the number of miles you might receive from buying $100 worth of flowers (2500 during the most recent promo), they decide to reduce frequent FLYER mile accrual for FLIGHTS.

But you'll never see them reduce partner awards. Selling miles to partners is too big of a cash cow for the airlines.

[back to Joe]

hey, they took any rewards from shareholders and employees years and years ago.

how can anyone be surprised?

[Thomas]

andrew p wrote:

There are fees on award tickets, unless you are 1K or Global Services.
The real irony is that United and other carriers complain about the number of outstanding redeemable miles creating a balance sheet liability, but at the same time give them out like candy via non-flight outlets (dining, shopping, rental cars, hotels, mortgages, wireless plans, etc). So, instead of reducing the number of miles you might receive from buying $100 worth of flowers (2500 during the most recent promo), they decide to reduce frequent FLYER mile accrual for FLIGHTS.
But you'll never see them reduce partner awards. Selling miles to partners is too big of a cash cow for the airlines.

The reason they are cutting the flight miles is the flight miles go towards premier status. Less people make premier status and more people pay their outrageous baggage, change fees, and other fees that premiers don't pay.

[Thomas]

andrew p wrote:

There are fees on award tickets, unless you are 1K or Global Services.
The real irony is that United and other carriers complain about the number of outstanding redeemable miles creating a balance sheet liability, but at the same time give them out like candy via non-flight outlets (dining, shopping, rental cars, hotels, mortgages, wireless plans, etc). So, instead of reducing the number of miles you might receive from buying $100 worth of flowers (2500 during the most recent promo), they decide to reduce frequent FLYER mile accrual for FLIGHTS.
But you'll never see them reduce partner awards. Selling miles to partners is too big of a cash cow for the airlines.

The fees and charges on an award ticket could be extensive.$75 dollars on short notice,$25 dollars if you can't do it online.$100 dollars for any change. Bringing 2 bags with you $50 dollars.

Suddenly that 'free' award ticket cost you $250 dollars.

[Steve]

As an ex-emloyee I feel the same way.

drive 1 foot from bikes wrote:

United has already lost its customers. I was Premier Exec for many years. I got fed up with the delays at ORD and finally made the move to Midway. Though I hate the white trash crowds at least my flight takes off on time. United is like a bad marriage, just divorce yourself from them. It feels so great to be out of that bad relationship where I gave so much to them for so little in return.

[Thomas]

I don't know why people are choosing United over southwest on any of these routes. United has shifted most flights under 500 miles on to their cramped regional jets. Go over to Midway and take southwest. They are more frequent service, if you pay the business class fare you get to board first and you get to pick your seat, its the same one free coke and you don't need a $10 dollar United snack pack. Plus you will earn a free ticket on Southwest after only 8 round trips. Not the 50+ roundtrips it would take you at United to Earn a worthless Saver award.