Mileage Plus “Friends and Family” change really hurts — even for big spenders

One thing is pretty clear with the changes in most frequent flier award programs: airlines have decided they don’t care about bargain hunters. And, they don’t really care about the average traveler, either.

Airlines want the big spenders, airline travelers who spend their own money and those who can freely spend their employer’s and client’s money.

Personally, I’ve never found big spenders to have much loyalty, period. However, business travelers lucky enough to have unlimited or nearly unlimited travel budgets are among the most hard-core loyalists because they can use their benefits for vacation travel and for their friends and family.

Amazingly, as of April 15, 2015, United Airlines is going to take one of the biggest “Friends and Family” benefits away from the loyal fliers. For the uninitiated, when a high-level elite traveler on United currently gives miles or awards to a friend or relative, that person gets many of the same status benefits as the elite member.

For example, when one of my “Million Miler” clients was looking for a ticket for his daughter in college this Christmas, I suggested he use miles to get her home. Not only did it save him more than $1,000 on the ticket, it meant she got free economy plus seats and a free bag allowance. Those seat upgrades and baggage allowance were extra perks of her father’s elite status that could be passed along to family members — although the daughter has no status herself. In addition, the daughter enjoyed Premier Access check-in and priority boarding.

But with this proposed change, in the future the only benefits the traveler will get will be determined “by the traveler’s own Premier status, even if another member’s miles were used to purchase the award ticket.”

Besides seat assignments, boarding and baggage fees, this new rule will also affect waitlists for upgrades, which is a big deal to many frequent travelers, as many of them like to try to upgrade their spouses, children and friends. The elite members can still transfer their upgrades, but the traveler’s position on the waitlist may now be much lower.

At a time when there is so much competition for the front cabin seats, it already seems as if most of the time a passenger needs to be in one of the highest elite categories — 1k or Global Services — to get an upgrade on many routes. More so, in fact, since United’s policy is to rank waitlist position by status over time of booking.

Here is another example: On a San Francisco flight I looked at for next July, where there is not a single person booked in business class yet, there are no upgrades available. My client wants to use his miles to waitlist his adult children, who don’t have status; while they might be at the top of the list now, with the change they will be pushed increasingly further down. They could well end up on the day of departure in the middle of those 20-to-50-person waitlists often seen at the airport.

(I’ve gotten conflicting answers to what will happen to those waitlisted BEFORE April 15. They may be grandfathered in, but the handwriting is on the wall for the future.)

United IS keeping matching benefits for any customers traveling on the same reservation as a Premier member, which softens the blow a little. But, that doesn’t help when an elite traveler is on a paid business trip for work and hoping to bring along and upgrade a companion. Nor does it help if the trip doesn’t match exactly.

Clearly, the airline feels that whatever goodwill they have gained by extending their best travelers’ privileges to others isn’t worth the money they have lost from fees. Perhaps as the friends and family of these travelers end up with fewer upgrades, more actual elite travelers will be able to sit up front.

Or, who knows, perhaps the effective date was scheduled over four months in advance to see what the frequent flier community reaction is. With the newer, higher qualification rules for top status, United is risking offending some very well-paying customers with this proposed rule change.

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