The Big Reset: A Frequent Flyer Reflects on the Race to Top-Tier Status
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APEX Insight: A frequent flyer reflects on the annual race to make top-tier airline status and what it means when the clock runs out.
On the first day back from the holiday break, airports across the world are filled with the noble squad of frequent business travelers making their way back out onto the road. Armed with coffees and rollaboards and iPhones at the ready, these air travel veterans shuffle through security lines, queue into boarding groups and pretend to switch those phones into airplane mode when the aircraft doors close.
But there is something much deeper than common travel accoutrements linking these folks together: a deep-seated anxiety that permeates the news shop and the lounge and the rental car shuttle pickup area.
“We are all… back… to zero.”
And I am one of them.
Those who don’t fly often are quick to express indignation at the quest for frequent flyer status. And I can understand why. Elite level titles like Gold, Executive, Chairman and El Comandante bring to mind a caste system in the skies, where Platinum Flyers sashay through the airport and into rows with infinite legroom, while the “non-elites” fight for tiny bags of shelf-stable snacks from their middle seats in Row 37.
But status matters. It matters a lot.
Now, I have never been thanked by a pilot like George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air. I have not been whisked across the ramp from plane to plane in a European-made luxury sedan. (I have not even been whisked across the ramp in a Ford Focus.) Those are the perks of films and travel magazines and super-secret status level types.
But good old-fashioned elite status matters when you are on your sixth leg in three days and you need to make a change (again) and you can call the reservations center and talk to someone right away. It matters when that meeting sucked, and you get to soothe that pain with one complimentary alcoholic beverage. It matters when you get to the crowded, chaotic airport and all hell has broken loose and you know there will be a desk with a line that is 20 people deep instead of 200.
So the thought of being back at square one the first week of January can be daunting. The zero qualifying miles/segments/points/dollars on your online statement are tough to look at on January 1.
Some years, you know it won’t be a problem. The travel schedule is already full and that elite status goal seems very attainable. Other years begin with uncertainty. Will I have enough trips to make mid-tier? Will I need to make one of those mileage runs that those points-obsessed travel guys brag about? Will I need to start double-connecting through Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Tucson, Arizona, on my transcon flights?
And then there are the years where you say: “Forget it.” The years where you promise yourself that you’re not going to make status a priority. You will let the chips fall where they may and get on with your life without a supercool new tag for your carry-on.
And then February rolls around: all that goes out the window.
The quest for the top tier begins anew. The calculator comes out, and perhaps you will even set up a Google Sheet to plot out your progress for the year. How quickly can you change those zeroes into a beautiful five-digit number?
As I make my way through this annual saga, I often have a different perspective: I used to be on the other side. Just as there is stress in the airport in January for the frequent flyers, there is stress in the marketing departments of major airlines every fall. (I’ve worked in two of them.)
What are we going to do about status next year? What perks can we add within our budget? What perks do we need to take away to stay within our budgets? Do we need to change the qualification levels? What kind of bag tags should we send?
Every airline knows that frequent flyers are the best customers; they know how important status is to these loyal travelers. But there’s not an airline mileage program executive in the world that will not secretly admit these flyers sometimes drive them nuts. Even the slightest tweak to a status benefit will be analyzed, scrutinized and criticized. And sometimes criticism reaches the level of righteous indignation. And now the righteous indignation can make its way onto Twitter. And we all know how that ends.
So no matter how frenetic my drive for status may get, no matter how perplexed I may be by the changes this year, I will avoid reaching that level of indignation. But I will still freak out a little bit each year when I’m back to zero.
“The Big Reset” was originally published in the 7.1 February/March issue of APEX Experience magazine.