United & Continental merger news

Now, I was one person who thought the merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines (see merger info here) would be good in the long run. Unfortunately I am already seeing some things that make me cringe. One such thing as Mileage Plus published late last year about next year’s program changes is how elite passengers qualify for their elite status for next year.

For as long as I’ve been a UA Mileage Plus member you can qualify for elite frequent traveler status based upon segments traveled or miles traveled. For those of you who do not understand such things – think upgrades to first class, boarding the plane first (getting that overhead space), generally being able to speak to a customer service person and be treated like a person, and lastly but most importantly being able to bump someone with less status than you when you need to go standby or your flight has been cancelled. When you are not a frequent traveler (meaning you hop from airline to airline or even travel on the same airline but have not joined their program to track each and every flight) airlines sometime treat you something awful. Their belief (I don’t agree with it) is that you possibly will never give them another dime so why treat you as good as a business traveler who gives them money every week because they fly so often. Remember the scene in George Clooney’s movie “Up in the Air” when he talks about walking up to the American Airlines check in counter and upon swiping his membership card the agent’s demeanor instantly improves… Well Jason Reitman (the writer/director) of course took some liberties here but it does kinda happen in other places just not the check in counter.

So back to my rant… For as long as I can remember United’s highest (non-secret) level status of Premium Executive 1K requires 100,000 United miles flown or 100 United segments flown in a year. I say non-secret because the highest level (Global Services) is based on revenue to the airline not just segments or miles – and only United and the passenger know how much they financially mean to one another.

Next year, there is no change in the program in regard to the 100,000 miles flown requirement but will drastically change the program in relation to the number of segments required to keep the 1K status — by 20 %…yes 2-0-percent up to 120 segments. Now I won’t say that is impossible to get, but a 20% increase when none of the other global airlines is changing their programs is a little questionable. In fact some require less than 100 segments to acquire their high-end status (in fact Continental today only requires 90 to attain their highest status). But next year United’s Mileage Plus and Continental’s OnePass will be merged into one and there will be one fewer frequent flyer program in the world of a global airlines. And United is already showing that I bet my chips on the wrong horse.

Darn – American Airlines is starting to look pretty good right now.


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