So, yeah, we’ve got an in-person account of World Cup excitement in Brazil on this week’s episode. Rolo was on the scene and has some great stories to share about his experiences there.
Watch the games live on the screen this guy was walking around Rio with.
Also discussed this time around:
- United adopts the revenue-based earning plan, same as Delta. Turns out that not all our crew loses, and what of the credit cards??
- United is launching service between Houston and Santiago, Chile on December 7. The DLD crew (most of us; the Argentinian might be boycotting) is booked on the inaugural, assuming we wake up from the party the night before in time to catch the flight.
- American is cutting the number of business class seats on their 777s. Just how green is that grass??
- Seth got stuck in Chicago waiting out a thunder storm so he missed the show. That’s too bad given recent visits to the IATA meeting in Qatar, JetBlue Mint inaugural flight, #InsideDelta and Gogo. Apparently that’s going to make for quite the monologue on the next episode.
And the audio quality is a little lower than normal on this one; sorry about that. We had some technical issues with the recording.
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The 2015 Mileage Plus based revenue based redeemable mileage earnings program is an exact copy of Delta’s program, but United does not have the product quality and operational reliability as Delta does. Unless one buys short haul expensive tickets or spends 20 cents per RDM, the average person will see reduced RDM earnings. The average flyer will see their RDM earnings decrease from 30 to 60 percent, and this effects both general members and elites. And the proclaimed goal of awarding more miles to HVFs is limited as mileage earnings are capped at 75,000 miles per ticket. Manufacturing spending or credit card sign ups are far more lucrative for earning miles.
For those thinking United would revise the Star partner award chart to its previous levels, it is highly unlikely. United declined comment in a WSJ article whether they would change award redemption rates with the 2015 Mileage Plus program. http://online.wsj.com/articles/united-changing-frequent-flier-plan-to-award-miles-based-on-ticket-price-1402368061
Once Delta releases its 5 tiered award system, one should expect United will copy it exactly and implement further redemption devaluations.