[zbruhnke]

As someone who is in the top 1% of fliers I could not disagree more with the sentiment that the top 1% of fliers aren't going anywhere/will not notice good service.

In fact as a counter to that point I flew well over 150k miles on United last year and yet right now I'm doing a status match on American because United's service on my most frequent route (LAX -> JFK) completely changed in October of last year and I was/am hoping that American may offer superior service on that route. Regardless of the miles in my account (they truly don't matter that much to me) I care about how the customer service is, how the delays are and how often my baggage is handled properly.

When I do use my miles its almost never on a ticket for me but a ticket for a friend or family member.

As for those people who are not frequent fliers but expecting an upgrade "randomly" I'd suggest to pay more for the seats and "upgrade" yourself. The short of it is, the people who do spend as much time in the air as people like me do care and it does make a difference to the Airlines' bottom line no doubt.

[rconti]

Thanks for your comment. We're all certainly sensitive to customer service issues (if anything, frequent fliers even more so). I think a major change in service for your most frequently-used route is pretty significant, and I'd expect anyone to switch airlines for this. I was speaking more of small changes that would likely go unnoticed, eg if one airline offers upgrades to frequent fliers slightly more often than another; that might go unnoticed, and even if it didn't, likely would not trump loyalty due to existing miles, preferable routes, preferred lounges/service of one airline over another, etc.

Your suggestion of "upgrading" yourself is not realistic for 2 reasons. One, very few people will pay 5x as much for a slightly better experience. The price difference vastly exceeds the actual cost (except to the extent that premium seats subsidize coach seats, of course).

Secondly, my comment was about the customer goodwill the occasional upgrade would generate, as lowly infrequent fliers do not expect to be treated as anything but breathing, inconvenient cargo.

You say that people who spend as much time in the air as you DO care, but you also said you don't use upgrades, and you changed airlines over a major service change, not over a minor upgrade policy change. I'm not saying you DON'T care about upgrades, just that it's not really what you were addressing in your comment.