The key word in the “training purposes” recording is that the call MAY be monitored and recorded. I worked in a call center myself, and only about 15-20% of my calls were monitored.

My experiences mirror yours. I’ve been doing the loyalty program thing since the mid-90s. To date, I have paid exactly 1 no-show fee. In every case, its been waived, even weeks later when I got my credit card statement and realized the charge. This is even as a mid-tiered elite in Priority Club.

Almost every travel site or writer states that you should join an airline loyalty program – only because they do treat their elite level passengers better than the general public. I support this theory. However, I’ve never been a fan of credit card loyalty programs because it just seems like the benefits are far outweighed by the disadvantages.

First, lets dispense with this loyalty nonsense. The term loyalty is a marketing term. Whoever doesn’t understand that needs to take Marketing 101. On the corporate side, a loyalty program is a way of incentivizing profitable customers to divert a greater share of their business towards to the corporation. On the consumer side, it’s a means of maximizing the return on the investment of your travel dollars.

When they’re in sync, it works well. When it not in sync, they work badly. The problem comes in when people fails to do a cost benefit analysis and end up spending time and/or money unwisely.

Chris would consider a mileage run to be an airline created waste of money. Well, consider my first mileage run. I took a little mini-vacation to Chicago that I might otherwise not have taken. Total cost:$500.00. That mileage run put me over the top to Executive Platinum. The result was that for the next year, I complimentary upgrades on all American Airlines domestic flights,($5000) complete waiver of all bookingj fees, $50 discount on the Admirals Club, and best of all, 4 international round trip upgrades which allowed my family of 4 to go to Paris in Business Class for $400 each. I figure that $500 saved me about $10,000.00 over the next year.

I would consider that a great return on my investment.

Similarly a couple years ago, I did a mattress run to qualify as platinum with Marriott. I found the cheapest Marriott in the Bay area and spend 2 nights (actually) I messed up the sheets then went home. As plat, when I went to Europe they comped my entire family breakfast. 6 nights, 4 breakfasts, $30, for a total savings of $720. Far less then the mattress run.

And the examples would continue. The point is that from the consumer side, the loyalty program should be managed like any other asset to ensure a proper return on the investment. Mileage or mattress runs only make sense if the benefit outweighs costs.

A properly managed loyalty program can enhance your travel experiences substantially. Unfortunately, as Kim discovered, a badly managed on does the opposite. My personal experience is that the worst award is the free ticket award. Its almost never worth it. The ticket is highly restricted and you have to jump through too many hoops. She’d generally be better off getting a cash rewards card. At 1.5% she’d have the $375 to buy a ticket for cash or do whatever else she wanted to do.

The various elite levels are far from “meaningless” for most of those who reach them.

However, if you had gone after the increasingly decreasing availability of “award” tickets you would probably get few complaints, even though that issues has been done to death..