Elite mileage members are a special breed. As a travel agent in California, most of my “elite” clients are with United, which is the dominant carrier at San Francisco. And for years, the holy grail of mileage status has been “1K” — 100,000 miles a year.
To attain this level, many travelers will cheerfully bypass connections or cheaper fares with other airlines. In return, United has showered them with upgrades and preferential treatment.
In the past few years, however, United has been focusing on “Global Services” — a special mileage level that is higher than 1k. While the requirements have been shrouded in mystery, one factor has been the cost of tickets. Hence clients who have flown over 100,000 miles, but done so mostly on discounted tickets, do not qualify.
But this year it’s gotten much, much worse. Now, the natives are restless. Here’s the story of client A and B:
Client A travels extensively for his university job, and is a United loyalist, to the tune of over 133,000 miles last year alone. While he traveled some in business class, when possible he tried to save the university money with advance purchase tickets, using his miles to upgrade. His tickets, however, were neither last minute internet specials nor deeply discounted sale fares.
For his troubles, including some real stressful trips with bad weather in places like Chicago or Denver, he was rewarded with 1k status again, but told he did not fly enough high-revenue miles to keep his Global Service status.
Client B works for a foundation and loves Delta Air Lines. He will take them whenever possible and flew over 100,000 miles with them, using Delta almost exclusively domestically and for flights to South America. He flies United as a last resort, but did take three Asia trips with them and one or two Europe trips. His total on United, about 60,000 miles. But all at the lowest available business class fare.
And he was rewarded with 1K-Global Services status.
Now, clearly airlines are focusing on high-revenue travelers. Virgin America’s new mileage program does focus more on dollars spent than miles flown. But United’s unannounced changes are a slap in the face to some of their most loyal customers.
For non-elite mileage members, the difference might seem trivial. 1Ks still get a certain number of free upgrades, preferred seating and better than average treatment. But they are lower on wait lists — for seats and for upgrades — than Global Services, and don’t have access to the special reservation numbers which are generally answered quickly by competent agents.
There are many other travelers I know who have also been denied Global Services, simply because they have really made an effort work within their company budgets. (And these aren’t the folks who do the round the world mileage runs to get 30,000 miles as cheaply and as quickly as possible, nor are they the types who fly most weekends on the last minute internet special fares.) In addition, several other clients who have been long-time 1Ks, but were a few thousand miles short last year have been demoted to “Premier Executive.”
Clearly United is focusing on the big spenders, but will they lose their most loyal and long-suffering customers because of their new focus and a shift to mileage-level hardball.
