There was a very interesting article yesterday by Scott McCartney of the Wall Street Journal, discussing just how much money airlines are making from selling miles. And we're not even talking about airlines selling miles to credit card companies, which is a multi-billion dollar industry, but rather just the direct sale of miles to consumers.…
Continue reading: Just how much are airlines making from selling miles?
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I guess you can count me as one of those 700 transactions.. though I didn't buy just the multiplier but the travel option that included everything including the economy plus the checked bag and priority lane because it was a better cheaper option for me.
@Nathaniel - If I didn't fly often and had no status, I would probably buy the whole package too. I would buy economy plus anyway, and the bag fee would be a given (travelling for business where they make me take stuff with me) - So why not throw in just a few more bucks and get the whole package. It comes with an RCC 1-time pass too, right? And boarding with seating 1 would be early enough to still get space in the overhead.
For a 1K though, award accelerator doesn't seem to make much financial sense.
@huntersfo that is exactly it I don't fly enough to get status so its worth it to me to purchase it as needed.
Oh and you can choose to have rcc or not... not really worth it as all the rccs I could use suck..
Lucky, don't be so shocked by 5%. Keep in mind a lot of people travel on business and expense their travel expenses. While plenty of expense reports don't allow this, I'm sure plenty do or, more likely, it goes unchecked. If somebody else was paying the bill, wouldn't YOU be buying award accelerator every time?
What I haven't been able to sort out with US, for example, is.... do the miles just count as bonus miles, or do they count as PQM's? And, no, I haven't doubled by paying yet - but if they were to count toward status, then..... quite possibly.
@ johosofat -- They make it sound like it's 5% of all customers, though maybe just Dividend Miles members.
@ Susan -- They're only redeemable miles; not elite qualifying miles.
Lucky, do you have any idea/figures on how much US Airways pays to its partners for each segment on these complex first-class bookings that so many FTers are putting together on upper-tier airlines? I have no idea how award tickets are worked out between airlines, but I understand that there is some sort of payment system...
There is no way you can get me to pay more for the miles than it actually costs to pay for the flights... I <3 to $$$crew (the airlines?).