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Generally when airline mergers result in mergers of ff programs in recent years the result has been a significantly downgraded ff program. We saw that with KL / AF, DL / NW, and CO / UA. Fortunately, the merged ff programs of AA and US will not follow that pattern, and will in most respects continue the current AA program:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-thread.html
This is good news for passengers.
One fear had been that this might result in a move toward the ''frequent buyer'' approach of DL and UA, but it has not. AA keeps a traditional ff program. I think this will probably be more appealing to mixed fare travellers like myself, who far outnumber those who travel for business only. In my case, business travel has accounted for between 60% and 90% of my elite status qualification miles each year, with the balance made up in leisure travel.
Leisure travelers use price as a major factor in buying tickets, so mixed fare travelers will gravitate to an airline that uses actual miles rather than ticket price as the criteria for its ff program. The airline then reaps the benefit of my business travel which is at higher fare classes. A good example is an intra-Europe business trip I took last week. When we first started penciling in the trip, Skyscanner showed ticket prices on multiple airlines in the $300-350 range. As a leisure traveller, I would have booked then at that price. However, before everything fell into place where our travel department could book the tickets, the best fares had gone to $1,500 each. I took two other people with me. AA and its partners benefit by keeping mixed fare flyers like me insisting on using them for our biz travel. If they did not maintain a program that keeps me as an elite, I would not make it a point with the travel office which airlines to book me and those travelling with me on.
Hooray for AA.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-thread.html
This is good news for passengers.
One fear had been that this might result in a move toward the ''frequent buyer'' approach of DL and UA, but it has not. AA keeps a traditional ff program. I think this will probably be more appealing to mixed fare travellers like myself, who far outnumber those who travel for business only. In my case, business travel has accounted for between 60% and 90% of my elite status qualification miles each year, with the balance made up in leisure travel.
Leisure travelers use price as a major factor in buying tickets, so mixed fare travelers will gravitate to an airline that uses actual miles rather than ticket price as the criteria for its ff program. The airline then reaps the benefit of my business travel which is at higher fare classes. A good example is an intra-Europe business trip I took last week. When we first started penciling in the trip, Skyscanner showed ticket prices on multiple airlines in the $300-350 range. As a leisure traveller, I would have booked then at that price. However, before everything fell into place where our travel department could book the tickets, the best fares had gone to $1,500 each. I took two other people with me. AA and its partners benefit by keeping mixed fare flyers like me insisting on using them for our biz travel. If they did not maintain a program that keeps me as an elite, I would not make it a point with the travel office which airlines to book me and those travelling with me on.
Hooray for AA.
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