
The Engineer Who converted 12,100 Cups Of Pudding to 1.25 Million Air Miles - raleec
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/09/engineer-bought-12100-cups-pudding-earn-1-25-million-air-miles/
======
whafro
My story isn't nearly as extreme, but I'm still pretty proud of it.

Three years ago, there was a LivingSocial deal with a headline to the effect
of "$10,000 for one night in the SF Fairmont Penthouse Suite." In a moment of
"who would buy this?!," I of course read the whole thing, and the offering was
impressive -- it included monogrammed Tiffany table settings for 20 or
something, and the suite had a helipad accessible via bookcase-door -- but
nothing I'd ever spend my money on.

At the bottom of the blurb, LS mentioned an alternative offer -- "$2000 for a
night in the Presidential Suite." In reading that, the last bullet point read
"plus Fairmont Platinum Status for Life." Now that, I thought, might actually
be a good deal.

Fairmont Platinum gives you a night free, 10 nights of suite upgrades, 10
nights of room upgrades, $100 in spa/dining certificates, and a few other
things each year. I'm a young guy, so the math is fairly compelling when you
add this up over a lifetime. So I redeemed the deal and posted the opportunity
on the frequent flyer forums for Fairmont, where many of Fairmont's best
customers lurk, and they quickly snapped up dozens of the deals, leading to
Fairmont/LivingSocial putting a freeze on it.

Apparently the "for life" bit had been an error, and they meant "for one
year." But now they had some of their best customers, people who often earned
their Platinum status anyway, encouraging them to honor it. After taking a
weekend to think it over, Fairmont decided to honor the deal, and I've been a
Fairmont Plat ever since.

I used the actual night in the suite to throw a surprise engagement party, and
it was pretty amazing. Since then, my wife and I have stayed in suites on the
cheap in Sonoma, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and we actually spent 5 nights in
an oceanfront suite on Hawaii for $129/night (the AAA rate for the suite was
$1200/night). And we get lots of nice perks along the way.

Like I said, it's no 4MM miles for $4000, but for doing next to no work, it'll
be a nice perk that my family and I will hopefully take advantage of for
decades to come.

~~~
skrebbel
Cool that Fairmont stuck with the erroneous promise. It would've been easy for
them to say no and "well, sue us if you dare!" you, without any significant
loss-of-sales effect on the bottom of their end-of-year Excel sheets. Implies
some long-term thinking or just plain decency (which I wager are the same
thing).

~~~
6cxs2hd6
> It would've been easy for them to say no and "well, sue us if you dare!"

But the headlines.

"Sweet Suite Deal Means Suits Dealt Suit"

"President in Suit Sued over Presidential Suite"

&c

~~~
joezydeco
Did you ever work for Variety Magazine?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_nix_hick_pix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_nix_hick_pix)

~~~
JonnieCache
I think he might actually work for our local rag:

    
    
        COUNCIL CALLS
        IN COUNSELLORS
         TO COUNSEL
         COUNCILLORS
    

Proof:
[http://31.media.tumblr.com/16e7faf98531c86485462d3a64f04ff6/...](http://31.media.tumblr.com/16e7faf98531c86485462d3a64f04ff6/tumblr_ms2v93IBxE1qzxm9ao1_500.jpg)

There are many other amusing examples of their editorial finesse out there for
those who care to look.

------
reuven
My favorite story of this sort happened a few years ago: The US has never been
successful at getting the public to accept dollar coins. As a result, the
dollar coins -- some with presidents on them, and some with Sacajawea depicted
-- were sitting in the US Mint's warehouses. The Mint, in order to get rid of
these coins, offered people the chance to (a) order them by mail, (b) have
them delivered for free, and (c) pay for them on a credit card.

Some people (very cleverly) did the math, and ordered ridiculous numbers of
dollar coins on their airline-affiliated credit cards. When the dollar coins
would arrive, the buyers would take them back to their bank, depositing the
money in their account.

In other words, these people were getting thousands of dollars' worth of
frequent flyer miles each week, for absolutely free. The Mint found out about
this when banks started sending them enormous numbers of dollar coins,
unopened, for storage, and that a very small number of customers were ordering
a very large number of dollar coins.

The full (and very entertaining) story was done by NPR's Planet Money podcast:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/13/137795995/how-
freq...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/13/137795995/how-frequent-
fliers-exploit-a-government-program-to-get-free-trips)

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Some people (very cleverly) did the math, and ordered ridiculous numbers of
> dollar coins on their airline-affiliated credit cards. When the dollar coins
> would arrive, the buyers would take them back to their bank, depositing the
> money in their account.

Effectively, this works around the usual restrictions on using credit cards
for cash advances. Even if you just had a standard cash-back credit card (1-2%
on purchases), you could make a huge reward without actually spending any
money, and on top of that you'd be able to get a month's worth of cash advance
up to your credit limit; you could make a significant amount on the float that
way.

However, most credit cards have fine print that explicitly excludes the direct
purchase of negotiable financial instruments, so they'd have every right to
cancel the rewards and charge a cash-advance fee if they found out.

------
andykellr
The typical redemption estimate of a mile is 1 cent. Often $250 tickets are
25,000 miles, $500 tickets are 50,000 miles, etc. When you find a $1000 ticket
for 25,000 use miles. I've seen $600 tickets for 125,000 miles. That's a bad
use of miles.

Many credit cards give you about 1% bonus (points, miles, whatever) and miles
cards give you a mile per dollar spent. 1% of a dollar is 1 cent. So this math
makes sense.

He got 1000 miles for 2.50. If each mile is worth 1 cent, that's a 4x benefit.
Great, but not amazing. He got a tax deduction too, so maybe it was a 5-6x
benefit. Sounds like a bit of a hassle, but the other perks sound great.

Anyway, the article should say $15,000 worth of miles. The airline might sell
them to you for $150,000 but that's why you should never buy miles unless
there's a tiny gap in what you have/need for a flight. For example, United
will sell you 50,000 miles for $1881.25 which you can then redeem for a ~$500
ticket and not earn miles on that flight.

~~~
jcampbell1
Reaching a gold status for life is worth more than the miles alone. You pretty
much always fly first class for free, and you get 2-5x miles on every flight.
Also, all tickets effectively become like full fare tickets. Want to extend a
trip by a few days? Just call the number and it will be taken care of.

He now has 4M miles, by taking advantage of the status.

~~~
nohuck13
American Airlines gold status (the lowest frequent flyer status level) is not
actually that generous. It's basically priority boarding, a little bit of
priority on the upgrade queue (if you want to pay for the upgrade with upgrade
vouchers or cash), and that's about it. Lounge access doesn't even come until
platinum, one level above gold, and then only on international flights.

I'm sure he makes lots of good things happen by paying for them with his
copious of miles, but it's not from the gold status :)

[https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/eliteStatus/elite-
benefit...](https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/eliteStatus/elite-benefits-
chart.jsp)

------
kleiba
This made it into the plot of Paul Thomas Anderson's movie "Punch-Drunk Love",
starring Adam Sandler (2002).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-
Drunk_Love](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Drunk_Love)

~~~
bradleyland
This was the first (maybe only) Adam Sandler movie where I felt like his
unique blend of quirky, quiet persona played very well in to the character.
It's worth a watch.

~~~
mhb
No love for _The Wedding Singer_?

~~~
dlhavema
i thought this was a great movie, mainly because i had just studied the 80's
extensively. The references were great...

------
LinaLauneBaer
This reminds me of a story: For a certain time in recent theory you were able
to legally "print money":

A couple of years ago when Germany got the Euro currency there were put a few
regulations in place for the banks. If you came to them with 100 Deutsch Marks
in your hands (old currency) they had to convert the 100 Deutsch Marks to euro
by using the ratio 1:1.95583. The banks had to round up if needed. So in
theory you could give them 1 Pfennig ( = 1/100 of 1 Deutsch Mark) and demand
that they exchange that to Euro. If you do the math 1 Pfennig ~= 0.5 Euro
Cent. Since the banks had to round up you ended up with 1 Euro Cent. That is a
100% return of investment. Now in theory you would have to give your bank 50
million 1 Pfennig coins (separately) and you would have gotten back 100
million euro cents = 1 million euros. But you would have only invested only
0.5 million euros. And so on…

I am not sure if this is an urban legend. It was told to me when I was a kid.

~~~
yannickmahe
Wouldn't that mean you'd have to give each Pfennig individually? Otherwise,
they'd just round the whole sum.

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
Yes. :)

    
    
        you would have to give your bank 50 million 1 Pfennig coins (*separately*)

~~~
m_mueller
This thread reminds me of this episode[1] more and more..

[1]
[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120914205337/seinfel...](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120914205337/seinfeld/images/3/30/The_bottle_deposit.jpg)

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
I don't get that reference. Care to explain?

~~~
Zimahl
The reference is to an episode of Seinfeld where the Kramer sub-plot is about
bottle deposit returns. Kramer notices that he can get 10 cents instead of the
usual 5 cents for a bottle deposit return if he can return it to Michigan.
Newman says that it can't be done, he's crunched the numbers and you blow all
of your profit by transporting the bottles (remember, Seinfeld is set in NYC).
However, Newman (a postal worker) finds out there is an overflow mail truck
that only happens on Mother's Day due to all the cards that are sent and that
they can have the USPS essentially cover the transportation so he signs up to
drive the truck. Of course nothing goes the way it's supposed to when the
Elaine/Jerry plot merges with the Newman/Kramer plot and Kramer is forced to
abandon the attempt mid-quest (after throwing Newman out of the postal truck)
to recover JFK's golf clubs.

The picture is of Newman drinking a soda so he can get the deposit on it.

~~~
bradleyjg
There's a somewhat similar actual occurrence. It turns out that retailers get
something like 7 cents a can for soda bottles, but the way the deposit law is
set up they only have to pay 5. I guess it's to encorage them to collect the
cans. Anyway there's one store in Brooklyn that started offering 6 cents
instead of the usual 5. Apparently there are lines around the block and people
using the machines 24/7.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Around here (SF Bay Area, California) we pay the "deposit" but none of the
stores (I'm aware of) actually buy cans and bottles back. I'm not sure how
much the per can price is at the recycling places you have to take them to.

I was very surprised one time on vacation in Oregon when there was a
can/bottle recycling machine right at the entrance of a grocery store. I
walked back to it with an empty can from the car I had and fed the can into
the machine. I was a little disappointed that all it gave me was a receipt to
use toward my next purchase at that store. But if it was a store I went to
regularly, it would totally make sense.

~~~
Zimahl
I live in Oregon and you can get cash from the store for that receipt. Some
people (homeless, poor, frugal) collect bottles and cans from public trash
bins for this exact purpose. Sometimes schools have fundraisers where you drop
off bags of cans and then they take them in and get the cash value for them.

------
jpatokal
Here's the guy's story in his own words, including some rather amazing
pictures of the loot:

[http://www.flyertalk.com/pudding.htm](http://www.flyertalk.com/pudding.htm)

------
jvanderwal
My friends and I got a few round trip plane tickets once. Wendy's had a deal
where their largest drinks had coupons to cut off their sides. I think 60
coupons got you a one-way domestic ticket on AirTran and 120 got you round
trip. We were kids so we went dumpster diving at a couple local restaurants,
found hundreds and hundreds of cups, and walked away with 3 or 4 round trip
tickets. Not nearly as amazing as 1.25 million air miles, but we were pretty
proud of ourselves.

~~~
joonix
That's your own blog, I feel you should disclose that because the tone of your
post makes it appear as if you're just a reader.

And reading that blog doesn't equal 1.25 million miles. I'd like to know what
strategies you used.

------
jrochkind1
When I was a child, there was some promotion with general mills cereal and
free airline tickets for children.

We had a basement full of a year's supply of cheerio's, because my parents
calculated the amount of cereal they had to buy was still significantly
cheaper than the ticket would have cost, at that point, for our yearly visit
to the granparents in florida.

------
skrebbel
The thing that surprised me most about this story is that there's a brand of
_chocolate pudding_ called "Healthy Choice".

~~~
maxerickson
Really there is a brand called "Healthy Choice" that markets chocolate
pudding.

It's only sort of the same thing...

~~~
dlhavema
still the original thought exists "how is chocolate pudding a 'Healthy
Choice'?"

~~~
maxerickson
Sure. What I was getting at is that they don't care, they are using the name
to sell things, not making a promise.

And they probably sort of deliver, I bet they put fiber and 'mouth feel'
agents in it that make it have a lot less calories (there are some hand wavy
arguments against food science products, but I bet for lots of people that
slight risk is a good trade off for the calories).

------
outworlder
I think this guy should apply to YCombinator. In particular, there's a
question about the time where you have "hacked" the system, or something to
that effect.

------
BenoitEssiambre
I met a retired guy during a trip in Peru who was travelling the world using
airmiles acquired by signing up with free credit cards.

Credit card companies would offer a few hundred air miles when he signed up.
He would then simply cancel the cards a month later. He said that often when
he called to cancel cards, he would be offered additional air miles incentives
to prevent him from cancelling. He would keep the card an additional month
when that happened.

~~~
driverdan
That's very common. It's one of the first things travel hackers do when they
get into it. Card signup bonuses are worth $500-1000 and generally require a
minimum spend of $2000-5000. Not much effort for free money.

~~~
hobo_mark
Every time I read these stories I wish this would also be possible in Europe.

------
ukoki
For a couple more examples of "beating the system", This American Life did a
great episode on loopholes last year: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/473/l...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/473/loopholes)

~~~
jpatokal
This one is particularly epic: [http://www.propublica.org/article/death-takes-
a-policy-how-a...](http://www.propublica.org/article/death-takes-a-policy-how-
a-lawyer-exploited-the-fine-print)

~~~
kbenson
That's a great article. I find it really troubling how the insurance agencies
responded. He may or may not be responsible for the criminal charges regarding
fraud, but those should be considered separately from the contractual
loopholes he legally exploited, since none of those allegations are required
to have been true for his idea to work.

------
logn
A similar (but failed) attempt:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc).

------
WickyNilliams
In some kind of strange coincidence I read about this exact story last night
on Quora [1]. Perhaps someone else did too :)

Anyway this is a fantastic story of a man gaming the system. In the Quora
thread I've linked to there are some other fantastic examples. Particularly
the ATM bug! I'd heard of that one before but just in case you hadn't...

Cash points have a feature whereby if you don't take the dispensed cash within
a time limit, they take the money back, and re-credit your account. However
some affected ATMs did not count the cash on the way back in. Now the exploit
should be obvious - take the majority of the cash carefully and allow the ATM
to swallow the rest. The cash you've taken is yours and the money you were
supposed to get goes back into your account. No doubt it would be easy to
track down customer's who had been involved in this exploit, but it's a fun
story nevertheless.

[1] [http://www.quora.com/Gaming-the-System/What-are-the-best-
exa...](http://www.quora.com/Gaming-the-System/What-are-the-best-examples-of-
people-cheating-the-system?share=1)

~~~
brazzy
I programmed ATMs some 10 years ago, and the way they worked was that
retracted cash would not be recycled, but stored and tagged with the
withdrawing account, which would get credited only after a manual counting (or
maybe immediately, but counted and confirmed afterwards)

------
lusr
Here's a guy who pretty much did it for free (and he wasn't the only one):
[http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/02/28/credit-card-reward-
po...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/02/28/credit-card-reward-points-
airline-miles-free/)

~~~
apaprocki
They quickly banned buying coins and money after figuring this out, but the
program still had many aspects which allowed quick multiplication of rewards,
bonuses, etc. I also achieved 1mln miles using the Starwood card and _just_
made it before my airline decided to no longer allow CC earned miles to count
towards lifetime status.

------
ekianjo
Even if you have miles you still have to pay for the airport taxes and stuff
like that which amounts to 50 percent of the full ticket price anyway.

~~~
corbet
In which country? That's never been my experience. I've hauled my family from
the US to Europe and back for $5/head + miles...

~~~
yitchelle
The taxes really depend on the airport involves during the flight. On a recent
return flight from Dusseldorf->London Heathrow->Dubai->Melbourne, on FF
points, the tax was 1/3 cost of the full price tickets, (around 450EUR).

Airport taxes in US must be quite low, relatively.

------
andyjohnson0
This reminded me of the Hoover free flights promotion [1] in the UK back in
1992.

Hoover's UK division tried to clear excess stock by offering free air tickets
for purchases of over £100. The promotion was so popular that Hoover was
unable to supply the tickets to all the participants, resulting in years of
legal actions.

Hoover UK eventually admitted that the exercise had cost it £50 million. Three
executive directors were dismissed and the business was sold to an Italian
company.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion)

------
raleec
This occurred in 1999, but it is still impressive!

~~~
rytis
I wonder if the companies are more careful these days?

~~~
Nicholas_C
I work with a guy who obsesses over air miles. This year he took his family to
Europe for free (including hotels). So it is still doable, but it takes a lot
of work. He has about 20 credit cards and is constantly cancelling and
applying for new cards. I would argue that my coworker is probably spending
way too much time and if you take into account opportunity costs it probably
isn't worth it for him. But I suppose if he enjoys it and sees it as a hobby,
why not?

~~~
pm90
I would say that a lot of the financial business does something similar;
exploit a loophole to make a windfall[0]. The benefits your friend gets might
or might not be worth the time, but my ideas about this are pretty much: you
shouldn't take from the system more than you put in. A lot of people work to
make this well oiled machine work the way it does; and if you don't do
something productive, you're kinda just leeching off it.

[0]: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-
who-b...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-broke-
the-Bank-of-England.html)

------
shacharz
A lesson on determination I guess, I probably would have just thought, "meh
that's too much to bother".

------
maneesh
I earned 1.25 million miles easily at
[http://hackthesystem.com](http://hackthesystem.com) using credit card bonus
tricks. It'll last me maybe 5 years economy, 2.5 years business class --- but
I fly every couple weeks.

The real benefit is the hotels, biz class, upgrades, amazon GCs, and more.

~~~
knite
Note: Maneesh runs the site he's promoting. See his submission history:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=maneesh](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=maneesh)

------
hudibras
I wonder how much having the word "engineer" in the title helped in getting
this to the front page...

~~~
jacquesm
It's a hack if there ever was one.

------
bluedevil2k
They say that 1.25 million air miles allow him to travel free, implying he can
do it forever. But, at 60,000 miles for a flight from the US to Asia, and a
family of 4, you can burn through the miles in 2 years.

~~~
drharris
The article mentions that he keeps earning more miles by paying attention to
every promotion out there, and has over 4 million now. I also wouldn't be
going straight from US to Asia; I'd be hopping locations gradually for an
extended vacation to get the most out of the miles.

------
noelherrick
There are still good deals available by using credit cards. My wife and I took
several trips (and sent other people on trips) by using a British Airways
Chase card and a Southwest card. We only had to fill out an application (no
pudding cup peeling required). Nothing in comparison to this guy, but very
doable.

------
hawkharris
If you enjoyed the pudding scheme, you'll get a kick out of these related
exploits: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/473/l...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/473/loopholes)

------
awor
When i was a teenager, there was a deal where if you bought a box of cheerios,
you got a pass to any Cineplex Odeon theatre.

So for a few months, we would buy boxes of cheerios at walmart for <$3 and
then go see a movie (~$8) and eat our cheerios out of the box in the theatre.

------
ck2
The way this story is retold on this particular site is horrible.

I've read another account that was written far better and with far more
detail.

In fact this article just seems like a summary of the first article, skipping
over details like he didn't first go with the pudding.

------
robmcm
That's a big risk, I'm surprised the company didn't find some loop hole, or
simply lose his entry.

There must have been a lot of times during this that he though, "this is never
actually going to work".

Fair play to him though.

~~~
raleec
apparently, they tried.. : "I became doubly worried when they failed to send
me the miles on time ... saying they had no record of my order! This seems
pretty incredible given that I mailed the package registered and someone on
their end signed for the package... Thankfully, I made copies of everything,
and took photographs just in case. When I sent them proof, they quickly sent
me the miles."

------
gnoway
So, he took advantage of a promotion in a way the manufacturer did not intend,
lied to grocery store employees to explain why he was depriving hundreds of
other customers of delicious pudding while concurrently ruining pudding as a
treat for his children, and caused his wife to physically harm herself peeling
product codes from plastic packaging which he then I guess sent to a single
landfill? Just so he could travel for free? And we're lauding this
accomplishment?

~~~
lkozma
... took advantage of ... in a way ... did not intend ...

At least this first part seems close to most definitions of hacking I know.

~~~
gnoway
A promotion, not a device. It's different.

Anyway the intent was more sarcasm than anything, but I guess I'll take the
karma hit.

~~~
kamjam
It made me laugh too, and I got the sarc, but I think it's the last bit which
really killed the karma... _And we 're lauding this accomplishment?_ Or maybe
add a </sarc> next time just to make it clear for everyone :)

------
sambeau
MacKeeper popup. Will not read.

~~~
fc2
You're missing out, it's hilarious. Oh, and get adblock.

------
burgerz
Very risky, he was lucky the air miles program didn't hire a bunch of lawyers
and get out of giving him anything.

------
aaron695
How was it tax deductible since he essentially was keeping all the value of
the product?

I can't buy a stack of cars and then donate a ashtray to the Salvation Army
and claim the car back?

~~~
dlhavema
i might be wrong but if it's a tax deduction, doesn't that just reduce his tax
liability by some percentage of the $800, so more like 20-30% depending upon
his tax bracket? That way the $800 is only worth maybe $200 - $300.. A tax
credit would be a full dollar for dollar comparison.

~~~
PeterisP
The article seems to state that he got $800 deduction out of the $3k pudding
purchase - which matches that 20-30% expectation.

------
atdrummond
Unfortunately, people like this are also the reason frequent flier programs
have become heavily devalued over the past two decades.

While this isn't probably as egregious as manufactured spending for credit
card points (to later be converted into airline miles), his family (and others
like him) are taking free seats and upgrades from frequent fliers who have
actually earned their miles from BIS (butt-in-seat) flying over the years. And
they're not even generating any useful amount of revenue for the airline.

~~~
ubernostrum
Well...

First of all, the fact that this promotion earned miles which could qualify
for some type of frequent-flyer status (elite-qualifying miles, or EQMs, to
use the jargon) was basically the dumbest thing ever. And EQMs these days are
difficult to come by through means other than actually buying a ticket and
getting on the plane; typically, only promotions which will actually earn
money for the airline can earn EQMs, and even those will have strict caps on
them (I have a US Airways club membership and credit card, for example, and
IIRC I can't pick up more than about 15k EQMs/year from the combination of
them).

That by itself gives a lot more flexibility in dealing with "abuse" of
promotions, since non-qualifying miles are only useful to be redeemed for
travel. And there are endless ways to cap that:

* Blackout dates to avoid too many "free" seats during peak paid-travel times of the year.

* Dynamic fare-bucket management, allowing the number of redeemable seats on any given flight to be adjusted up or down on the fly, along with confusing schedules for when the mileage-redeemable fare classes open for booking.

* Limiting availability of redeemable seats on alliance partners, making it impractical or impossible to plan longer itineraries as mileage awards.

* Fees for mileage redemption, ranging from simple processing fees up to things like British Airways' stupendous "fuel surcharge" (which can make a "free" business- or first-class ticket cost roughly as much actual cash as a fully-paid economy-class fare).

etc., etc.

And the trend now is toward revenue-based status programs, where qualifying
for frequent-flyer status requires not just a minimum number of miles but also
a certain minimum number of actual dollars spent, on that specific airline's
flights. That eliminates the more lucrative type of mileage-run since low-cost
but high-mileage itineraries no longer help with reaching status.

More generally, though, I think the airlines have moved toward no longer
considering "frequent flyers" as important as they once did. Frequent business
travelers are relevant, of course, but the strong preference is for the types
of folks whose corporate travel department just pays the fare the airline asks
for, rather than people who spend hours on travel-search sites trying to find
the optimal combo of high mileage/low fare.

~~~
atdrummond
Spot on.

The development of the Flagship Lounges (based on revenue generation, as
opposed to status) by American is strong proof of your thesis.

~~~
ubernostrum
Or look at Lufthansa's investment in its first-class terminal at FRA, and in
the 747-8. They like other things about that plane, but they especially like
the fact that it has room for more premium seats, and Lufthansa's image right
now is that of Europe's premium airline.

Not sure whether AA can match that for the US -- especially depending on the
merger -- but they seem to be heading in that direction, certainly.

