Elite Status Gets More Expensive

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

Perkins' advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com, a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins' travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "This Week with David Brinkley," "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

See recent posts by Ed Perkins

First Delta and now United have quietly added a “minimum qualifying dollars” ticket-price requirement for achieving various levels of elite status in each airline’s frequent-flyer program.

The basic math is simple: To reach each level, you have to fly a specified number of miles—25,000 for the first level—and spend at least $2,500 on tickets. Obviously, that works out to an average of 10 cents a mile. Higher elite levels on either airline keep to the 10-cents-a-mile formula.

The basic idea is simple: Too many travelers are earning elite status, with the result that too many elites are chasing too few of those precious upgrades. The airlines don’t want frequent leisure travelers to pile up status by flying on a lot of cheap tickets—or, even worse, to have business travelers take advantage of low-fare deals. These new dollar limits are established to avoid such “problems.”

Today, you can buy a round-trip from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., a total of 4,820 miles, for around $430. So to keep your dollars on par with your miles toward elite status, you’d have to buy a more expensive ticket. On the other hand, the least expensive legacy-airline Chicago-to-New York round-trip ticket, at 1,466 total miles, costs a bit over $300. So the dollars would more than keep parity with the miles. Ditto a summer-season Boston-to-London round-trip, at $1,150 for 6,530 miles.

The new requirement, then, is not overly onerous. Finding fares at less than 10 cents a mile isn’t easy these days, except perhaps during fare wars and industry-wide sales. But the airlines’ final objective is to limit the number of elite flyers, so if the current dollar requirements don’t do the job, airlines will keep hiking requirements until they do.

So far, we’ve seen no response from American or US Airways. But, as we’ve often noted, in the airline business, nothing catches on as fast as a bad idea.

You Might Also Like:

We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.