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Comment by code4tee | Hacker News Reader

This era is gradually coming to an end as the airlines now heavily weight status to how much $ you give them each year vs how many “miles” you fly. It’s freaking some people out but at some level it makes sense that the amount of free stuff they give you should be proportional to the amount of money you have given them.

For example starting next year United doesn’t care at all how many miles you fly... it’s basically just how much you spend (with a slight discount if you fly a lot of individual flights, but length of flight doesn’t matter).

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The problem with spend-based schemes is that the way flights ticketed by alliance partners credit becomes very convoluted since, for instance, United doesn't have any idea what you paid Air Canada to fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong on Thai Airways. So we end up in a situation where United's mileage credit rules could actually encourage you to fly, say, ANA from SF to Tokyo rather than United, which is exactly the opposite of what they were trying to do a few years ago by harmonizing mileage credit rates for their trans-Pacific joint venture partners.

Status wasn't just supposed to encourage you to spend more with your home airway, but also to prefer their alliance partners when you travel outside of your airline's route network and I think that concept is rapidly being weakened by these spend-based schemes.

It’s cyclical. The stronger the economy is, the worse airlines and hotels treat their loyalty program members. When the next bad recession hits, they will open the “loopholes” back up and we’ll be adrift in a sea of unbelievable promos.

I miss FatWallet :)

I just looked through the United rules for next year. Not really a surprise as earned points had already moved to dollar-based. But it does look like it will be harder for me to gain the same status next year as I did this year. (Which was actually already a bit of a step down from the past few years.)

It does make sense from the airline's point of view. They care about your money, not how many miles you fly with them. In fact, they probably would prefer you flew fewer miles (which cost them) and spent more money.

Also, cynically speaking, it's often a lot easier for employees to spend more money on flights than it is to take more flights and thereby get more butt-in-seat miles. There have been qualifying dollars for a while but they weren't that hard to hit and ways to get waivers. Now there's a direct incentive to spend a bit more on a ticket if you're near an award level.

I've got Ambassador at Marriott, so I get UA Silver free (an hertz 5-star diamond presidents circle elite or something similarly foolishly named), its not a bad combo, it gets me in the front of the airplane, and saves me a baggages fee.

I'm the flip. I'm now Gold on United which gets me Gold on Marriott. (I stay in Marriott a fair bit but not enough for Gold and that doesn't give you Lounge access any longer anyway.) I'm assuming the relationship is still in place next year though I haven't checked.

A bunch of programs went a bit cross-status nuts a few years back but those seem to be slowly going away or getting watered down.

Its not uncommon if you're booking late and flying out last min to have plenty of PQD/MQD or PQM/MQM, but not enough PQS/MQS, so the milage run is still a thing (and will still be a thing), because that extra segment count will get you over the hump.

Also, AS (Alaska) allows you to qualify for status with just segs or milage, no spend requirement is needed - great for folks in Seattle, or who frequently fly to seattle.

Alaska is also an amazing airline, so much better than any of the other domestic carriers. If I’m connecting to SeaTac from LAX or SFO, I’ll only fly Alaska. Connecting through those airports is so prone to delays, and the Alaska staff are absolutely amazing if you miss your connection. They’re also just great in general. Singapore is the only other airline I rate as highly.

I love Alaska (and am a Gold MVP on it, and dodged doing a mileage run this year) but I will say that their delusions of competing as a major character have made them more annoying in recent years.

I miss the Old Alaska, from before the Virgin merger, it was warmer and more friendly.

As do I.

And their nasty breakup with Delta is a massive problem for me.

It was for me as well. I'd love for them to thruline with southwest, but it wouldn't make sense.

Delta is currently doing some weird combination of miles and dollars for their status levels. The wife is pissed that she is way over the mileage amount for Delta Gold status, but she's about $900 short on the dollar amount.

Keeping that status is stupidly important; almost every flight she takes she gets upgraded.

That sounds like the (now) old system that United had for the past few years. United did have an out (for some status levels) of the dollar amount with spending on their co-branded credit cards; without that I would have missed a higher status level at least a year or two.

I don't often get upgraded to business. But I do get the slightly roomier Economy Plus, earlier boarding, and free checked bag (which I don't use much) all the time.

She's short because she is only getting MQDs for the ticket she paid for, not the class she flew. It's usually pretty easy to hit the miles and dollars levels at the same time unless you are consistently getting deals or buying discounted flights all year. They moved to this new MQM + MQD system like 2 or 3 years ago.

FWIW, you can also buy MQMs and the dollars you spend qualify as MQDs as well - check this out [0]. Delta doesn't promote this as much as they used to but it's a good way to maintain status at the end of the year if you find yourself a little short. It's basically a mileage run without having to step onto a plane.

If you pick up the Delta Amex card you are also exempted from MQDs once you spend $25K per year on the card. They have some decent bonus offers as well for signing up.

[0] https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/skymiles/elevate-you...

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