{"id":12615,"date":"2008-03-10T20:58:35","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T03:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/03\/10\/buying-privileges.html"},"modified":"2008-03-10T20:58:35","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T03:58:35","slug":"buying_privileges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/10\/buying_privileges.html","title":{"rendered":"Buying privileges"},"content":{"rendered":"

So once upon a time, United had frequent flier awards. If you flew X miles with them, you could trade in those miles for flights, but, more important, as you reached various tiers, you got access to various privileges — early seating, better seats, access to the spiffy flight lounge, etc.<\/p>\n

But times change, and now it’s not just enough to offer these as rewards for regular customers — to turn a profit (or less of a loss), the “honors” need to be for sale, too.<\/p>\n

So I’ve mentioned before how I lost my Premier status because I didn’t fly enough miles last year. I could have, for an extortionate (four figure, as I recall) price have bought <\/em>the miles to do so — sort of like Indulgences, I guess (literal indulgences, as far as that goes), but I simply could not justify the cost.<\/p>\n

Now it turns out that those “Economy Plus” seats — the ones that give you an extra five inches of leg room — well, originally they were sort of, “see what nice things we’re doing for you?”<\/p>\n

Then it became “and if you’re a premier or higher member, you can get an upgrade.”<\/p>\n

Now it’s “you can also just pay money to get access to them, otherwise fuggedaboudit<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

But, wait, there’s more. Yeah, for $350 you can buy access to Economy Plus seating (which, honestly, is quite likely worth it).  But for $750 you can get that access to the Red Carpet Room. Or for $800 you can get Economy Plus access plus reduce the miles you need to fly in order to get Premier membership (again, for me).<\/p>\n

Get it? You’re paying extra money, not to actually get anything, but to make it easier for you to get something (by paying more).<\/p>\n

*sigh*<\/p>\n

The airlines and the TSA seem to be racing to see who can make air travel more intolerable first. And that way, we’ll all win, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So once upon a time, United had frequent flier awards. If you flew X miles with them, you could trade in those miles for flights, but, more important, as you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133227,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/07\/how-are-airlines-making-money-these-days.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":0},"title":"How are airlines making money these days?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 7-Apr-17 2:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Increasingly, by selling miles to banks for loyalty credit cards.'In many ways, the Big Three U.S. airlines have organized themselves into two distinct businesses. There\u2019s the traditional activity\u2014the one with jets\u2014which involves pricing seats for as much as possible, collecting a bag fee, and selling some food and drinks while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7922,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/22\/cashing_in.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":1},"title":"Cashing in","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Jul-05 10:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I decided, screw this: I'm going to use some of these ever-accumulating airline miles on United and upgrade my travel to the UK. Going steerage class on international is...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/05\/flying_light.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":2},"title":"Flying light","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Feb-08 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Just ... swell ...\u00a0 United Airlines will begin charging some passengers $50 to check a second piece of luggage on domestic round-trip flights, becoming the first big carrier to impose...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42375,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/06\/money-as-speech.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":3},"title":"Money as speech","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Jun-14 9:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"A fine question. If I walk up to a woman on the street and talk her into having sex with me, that's considered harmless (except for what harm Margie would do to me when she found out). If I walk up to a woman on the street and pay her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132295,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/13\/oklahomas-admitting-privileges-anti-abortion-law-struck-down.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":4},"title":"Oklahoma's "admitting privileges" anti-abortion law struck down","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 13-Dec-16 11:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Laws that force doctors providing abortions to have admitting privileges in local hospitals are portrayed by their advocates as being designed to \"protect women's health.\" But they are clearly and overtly designed to reduce the places where women (especially in rural areas and conservative areas) can actually get an abortion.First,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13363,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/12\/fly_the_friendly_skies_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":12615,"position":5},"title":"Fly the friendly skies","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jan-09 7:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"Isn't that nice? United informs me, helpfully, that for only $1675, I can buy enough \"Elite Qualifying Miles\" (a bit under 12K) to qualify for United Premier Status, which will...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}