While surveying several travel message boards over course of the week I noticed an undercurrent of frustration stemming from recent customer-unfriendly changes to several loyalty programs and the perceived end of the salad days for loyalty reward travel. From airlines making it more expensive to qualify for elite status and devaluing the worth of their miles to Hotels gutting their programs making free rooms and upgrades more difficult and expensive to attain, there's a general feeling of malaise that's seeping into the award-travel community and the feeling is one of animosity. Couple this with the laments of the mainstream travel writers that economy class is getting worse and you have a customer base who's view of air travel is currently bleak, at best.
When I survey the landscape it seems that, while things are not good right now there are opportunities for those who are willing to re-evaluate how they play the game and take a different path. While I agree that the days of easy points and relatively cheap redemptions are gone, there is unique opportunity for those who are willing to put in a little work and there are an increasing number of deals to be had, provided you pay attention.
The way I see it, the biggest plus for travel in 2014 is the Government's new rules that mistake fares (fares that were loaded into the system wrong by the airline) must be honored. This is a boon for those who are willing to track such things. Before this ruling, it was 50/50 whether or not an airline was going to ticket said fares, and whether or not you'd actually be able to get on the flight. In the current environment the best the airlines can do is not credit you the full amount of miles for the flight miles that, given the recent rash of devaluations, aren't worth much anyway. In this new age of air-travel as a white good, I'm more interested in lower fares than I am earning potential for miles. Given that most airlines now offer branded credit card holders many of the same privileges as their elites, there's little reason to worry much about how many miles you'll accrue for the flight anyway. Yes, it is still in your best interest to maintain your elite accounts, with the healthy understanding that they're not going to be tickets to flying First Class in luxury around the world three times with two open-jaws, a 24 hour layover in some exotic location and a ride in a Porsche to your plane anymore.
Speaking of miles, 2014 is going to be a great year to empty out those accounts, to actually experience premium-cabin travel without the worry of having to qualify for status the next year. Instead of working through my qualifications in 2014, I'm spending my planning time working out how to drain my United Premier account to get the best bang for my buck. For you, that might mean taking several trips to Asia, Europe, South America, for me and the wife its flying premium cabin via Lufthansa through either Munich or Frankfurt so she can get a rubber ducky. It's also about getting to Las Vegas (for $5/person) a few times and generally just having a great time saying goodbye to United. When 2015 rolls around, we're excited about not being as stuck as we are looking at Smiling Jeff every flight and getting to see new safety films and new color seats. In the new world of air-travel, travel free agency is going to be at a premium.
When you get down to the nuts & bolts of it most of the airlines are pretty much the same, in economy that is. Yes some domestic airlines still offer peanuts and some (Spirit) charge for bottles of water. But when you get right down to it in economy you're really paying for a seat to get you from point A to point B without major drama. Going forward I predict that on-time service is going to be one of the biggest metrics passengers look at when choosing a flight, that and price obviously. But a low price will only get you so far. Spirit airlines are automatically off the board when I fly due to many factors, the chief of which is their schedule unreliability. Never mind that they have uncomfortable seats, horrid customer service and a ridiculous fee structure (that really makes their fares not as cheap when you include them), the fact that they are more likely to suffer almost complete route collapse when things go pear-shaped is an automatic disqualifier for me. So, excluding Spirit, the rest of the airlines are pretty much the same in economy, so price and reliability are the two main things I'm going to look at.
The final thing I want to address is the myth that economy is now "much worse" than it was in the "good ol' days" of air travel. I could not disagree with this more. Yes, in today's economy you've lost that small packet of peanuts or pretzels and, in some cases, you now have to pay to check a bag, the seats are getting smaller and the leg-room tighter. On the other hand airlines are adding individual IFE screens on many flights, in-flight Wi-Fi is becoming the norm instead of the exception (except on United, where the roll-out is going glacially slow), and in-seat power coupled with the ability to keep your electronic device on has made bringing your own entertainment on-board a very real thing. On top of that, many of the larger airports have taken great strides to improve their food offerings. One of my favorite things is to grab some food in the terminal, and then bring it out once the plane has crossed the 10,000 foot threshold. You say they've taken away food in economy? Well, in case you've forgotten, it was, in almost all cases, inedible anyway. At least now I'm able to pick my lunch and whatever I get have a better than average chance of being tasty. Trust me, if you roll out a Schlotzky's even the group in Business Class will look wistfully as you bite into it. And on long-haul, intercontinental flights, most airlines are still offering meal service in economy. So if you want to eat over-salted food of dodgy quality you can still book a flight to Europe and chow down. I will say this, when US Airways was around there were many times I still brought my lunch or dinner on-board and passed on their free offerings. Even in Business/First United has the frustrating tendency to not stock sufficient selections, so by the time you get to the back three rows you find out that all of the chicken entrees are gone and you're going to be offered either cold cereal or gefilte fish. Pass.
So, in conclusion, while there's a general trend among travel/points bloggers and the know-nothing, flying-averse MSM travel writers to belittle the current state of things I think we're all going to be A-OK. Yes, those heady times where you could apply for a credit card and receive enough miles to fly to Southeast Asia in a seat stuffed with peacock feathers while sipping Krug and dining on baby seal are long in the past, there's still a lot of opportunity to travel the globe at a relatively low cost and that's just fine with me.
