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Wednesday, December 4, 2013
How To Lose Your Frequent Flyer Miles
THE FREQUENT FLIER program is yet another ingenious corporate strategy in a nation long renowned for ingenious corporate strategies, luring frequent flyers into ever higher levels of air travel, like a seduction. As few airlines as there now are in America, you wouldn't think that any of them would ever have to advetise, or compete, like doctors, lawyers, oil companies, and insurance companies. Unlike these other American corporate monopolies, the airline industry still maintains a token appearance of competing. Sometimes, however, these brilliant corporate strategies have unintended consequences, and backfire on their corporate geniuses. Consider the classical musician, who travels all over the world giving concerts, and is a frequent flier with Delta. He is a loyal Delta customer, as is his cello, which sits next to him on all flights with paid ticket. Not only has the musician, but his cello as well, accumulated an abundance of frequent flier discount miles. Delta, evidently unwilling to give free travel to a cello, simply kicked both musician and cello out of the frequent flyer program, summarily. The cello seems unfazed. The musician is upset. In another instance, a rabbi named Ginsburg was kicked out of his frequent flyer program. His crime? He made too many complaints, and when he complained, he didn't fool around with lackeys; he went straight to the top. That was probably his biggest mistake, arousing the attention and wrath of "big boys." Had he kept his nit picking complaints to himself, complaints about flight delays, luggage handling, in flight srvice and such, he would probably have been lost in the shuffle, swept under the rug, and forgotten - but he would have kept his frequent flier miles. Sometimes a squeaky wheel does not get the grease it wants. Rabi ginsburg filed a lawsuit against the industry, and the lawsuit has made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He and his attorneys might use the freedom of speech argument, and unfair termination of contractual obligations. The five conservative court members will probably try every trick in the book to find for the corporate owners, but who knows?
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