Earlier today MJ, Marshall Jackson on Travel, wrote “Three Things I Hope US Airways Doesn’t Change About American.” I love MJs take on US Air 99.9% of the and I don’t disagree with this latest post either.
His post inspired me to write this post, which I’m sure will be very controversial (I love a good controversy.) So, you ask, what is it that I hope American doesn’t change? I hope they don’t get rid of the “Buy Up” program.
The Buy Up program allows you to pay for status. If you’re short of making a level, you can buy up to that level. It’s not cheap…it would cost you $4,000 to buy Chairman status outright (vs. 100,000 miles flown or 120 segments.) But, for those people who fly, say, 90,000 miles and have spent $25,000 in the process of doing so, it’s a huge benefit to be alb to buy up for $400 (the cost of 10,000 miles).
I suspect a lot of people will say I’m crazy, what a terrible idea, it devalues the program, blah blah…. But I’m a huge fan of this program and I really hope they don’t get rid of it. If they did for some reason, it would be a really hard for me to decide if I’d stay with “The New American” or move to another program (most likely Delta so I could take advantage of the Starwood cross over program.)
So, what camp do you fall in? And are there other things you hope don’t change?”
I hope the merger ends up in the dust bin of history like the US United merger did.
Agree…. wholeheartedly.
While I hope the merger implodes, this is one of the things I hope they get rid of unless they want to jack up the price to $10k or so. I suspect it will go away anyway when PQD/MQDs get installed on US Air or AA.