3 ms·

If I were trying to get into this market I'd try to find something I could sell to United 1Ks and AA ExPlats. I'll take ten of them over 100 leisure flyers. Th

• rdl 14y ago
  Not always; there are a lot of the hardcore travelers who hate their corp TA, and who want to maintain status with 2+ airlines. Add in hotels, and there's a market. Especially if you fly international a lot -- the foreign airlines are usually pretty bad at handling principals who make their own travel reservations, and most of the <40yo tech/law/etc. professionals who have to travel a lot prefer doing their own arrangements (with help) to blindly trusting someone else. There's also a market for people who fly a huge amount but are cheap and micro-optimizers. Not enough $ to get United Global Services, but 1K, and 1K doesn't actually help much except at the airport (and clearing waitlists). The other market might be lazy/late optimization. i.e. passively looking at your travel patterns, and if I see you fly in J/F SFO-IAD-KWI once a month for 6 months, proactively negotiating a rate with UA for you to do so at a discount in the future. That's not something UA will offer, but something a company or group could push for based on observed travel, especially if they can present LH as a credible alternative.