4 ms·

There are status challenges available to address that issue.

eropple 9y ago
So I fly at least one round-trip a month and I'd never even heard of this. That probably doesn't help with the notion of airline loyalty, yeah?
- saryant 9y ago
  Most are advertised through large employers or direct marketing emails. So if you're sending everything from United to spam, you won't see it. Some airlines still just hand out free status based on your employer (I have Cathay Pacific status through that sort of program despite having never paid for a CX flight). American auto-enrolled me in one earlier this year. Gave me free platinum status for three months and 20 500-mile upgrade certs. The certs were mine and I had those three months to fly 5000 miles to extend status for a year.
  - eropple 9y ago
    Now that I know about their existence, I'm totally seeing it. My point is more that this is a super-niche thing and so I'm not surprised that nobody has any loyalty to an airline (which rank down there with people who yell at kids on their lawn for customer satisfaction).
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  A few years back I had the unpleasant experience of going from Chairman's Preferred on US Airways, which no longer exists, to Executive Platinum on American, which US Airways merged with. I gave it a little over a year to see if they could solve the problems. Aside from just the teething issues of a major-airline merger, AA's approach to customer service was horrid, their reliability was in the toilet (ask me how many times I had connections in AA hubs on time versus how many times I spent the night involuntarily!), etc. So I jumped ship. I will never set foot in a United aircraft of my own free will, so I looked at Delta, which had and still has excellent reliability and satisfaction ratings from their frequent flyers. And it was relatively simple to set up a status match with them. I provided a photograph of my then-current AA Executive Platinum credentials, and they enrolled me. I had 90 days to meet a mileage/segments target, and if I did I'd be Delta Platinum for the following year. The target was, IIRC, just under 19,000 miles, and I hit it with about a month to spare. The only catch to a status match is generally you can only do it once. If you later lose status, or switch to another airline, they will not let you match back. Some airlines will also let you trial your way into status with no pre-existing credentials. When and whether and how they offer those varies a lot from airline to airline.

So I fly at least one round-trip a month and I'd never even heard of this. That probably doesn't help with the notion of airline loyalty, yeah?

saryant 9y ago
Most are advertised through large employers or direct marketing emails. So if you're sending everything from United to spam, you won't see it. Some airlines still just hand out free status based on your employer (I have Cathay Pacific status through that sort of program despite having never paid for a CX flight). American auto-enrolled me in one earlier this year. Gave me free platinum status for three months and 20 500-mile upgrade certs. The certs were mine and I had those three months to fly 5000 miles to extend status for a year.
- eropple 9y ago
  Now that I know about their existence, I'm totally seeing it. My point is more that this is a super-niche thing and so I'm not surprised that nobody has any loyalty to an airline (which rank down there with people who yell at kids on their lawn for customer satisfaction).
ubernostrum 9y ago
A few years back I had the unpleasant experience of going from Chairman's Preferred on US Airways, which no longer exists, to Executive Platinum on American, which US Airways merged with. I gave it a little over a year to see if they could solve the problems. Aside from just the teething issues of a major-airline merger, AA's approach to customer service was horrid, their reliability was in the toilet (ask me how many times I had connections in AA hubs on time versus how many times I spent the night involuntarily!), etc. So I jumped ship. I will never set foot in a United aircraft of my own free will, so I looked at Delta, which had and still has excellent reliability and satisfaction ratings from their frequent flyers. And it was relatively simple to set up a status match with them. I provided a photograph of my then-current AA Executive Platinum credentials, and they enrolled me. I had 90 days to meet a mileage/segments target, and if I did I'd be Delta Platinum for the following year. The target was, IIRC, just under 19,000 miles, and I hit it with about a month to spare. The only catch to a status match is generally you can only do it once. If you later lose status, or switch to another airline, they will not let you match back. Some airlines will also let you trial your way into status with no pre-existing credentials. When and whether and how they offer those varies a lot from airline to airline.