{"id":9908,"date":"2024-09-26T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=9908"},"modified":"2024-09-26T11:14:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T17:14:19","slug":"the-drake-equation-but-for-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/26\/the-drake-equation-but-for-status\/","title":{"rendered":"The Drake equation, But for Status"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most click-baitey articles that travel bloggers write is: &#8220;What is <em>[Airline]<\/em> Status Worth? <em>[Year]<\/em> Edition&#8221;. I&#8217;m sick of seeing these articles, so I decided it was time to come up with the equivalent of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Drake_equation\" class=\"ek-link\">Drake equation<\/a>, but for airline status because that&#8217;s apparently the best I can do with my life, and also it marks the first time that my astrophysics training has a real world application (except not really, see below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Background<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The Drake equation calculates the probability of finding alien life, provided that you&#8217;re willing to make a bunch of hand-wavey assumptions and then plug them into a formula. This, it turns out, is exactly what those &#8220;What is <em>[Airline]<\/em> Status Worth?&#8221; articles do too, except they calculate a dollar amount instead of probability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, in an attempt to make &#8220;the one airline status value formula to rule them all&#8221;, let&#8217;s, shall we say, go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Status Equation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-katex-display-block katex-eq\" data-katex-display=\"true\"><pre>\\$V_{status} = n_{phone}\n \u22c5RH+n_{UI}\n \u22c5UI+BM+n_{FPS}\u200b\t\n \u22c5FPS+n_{up} \n \u22c5FU+BT+ANC+ SSW<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Where:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>n<sub>phone<\/sub><\/em> = The number of times you&#8217;ll make a call to the airline<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>RH<\/em> = The value of reduced hold time<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>n<sub>UI<\/sub><\/em> = The number of upgrade instruments you&#8217;ll earn and use<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>UI<\/em> = The value of an upgrade instrument<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>BM<\/em> = Bonus redeemable miles you&#8217;ll earn for holding status<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>n<sub>FPS<\/sub><\/em> = The number of free priority assigned seats you&#8217;ll get<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>FPS<\/em> = The value of a free priority assigned seat<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>n<sub>up<\/sub><\/em> = The number of times you&#8217;ll be upgraded<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>FU<\/em> = The value of a free upgrade (unironically abbreviated, I promise)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>BT<\/em> = The value of your elite brag tags, you know, <a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/iB9U2Je\" class=\"ek-link\">like this<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>ANC =<\/em> The value of ancillary benefits, like rental car status (that you probably already get from a credit card)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>SSW <\/em>= The value of your increased sense of self worth for holding elite status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, just like the drake up equation, make up a bunch of numbers for what could happen and you&#8217;ll come up with the dollar value of your status. For example, I decided that my AA Executive Platinum Status is worth $3,430, but that&#8217;s mostly because of <em>SSW<\/em>. Remove that, and it&#8217;s probably worth $500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a nice Thursday friends!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"629\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1-629x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10399\" style=\"width:420px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1-629x1024.jpg 629w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1-184x300.jpg 184w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1-768x1249.jpg 768w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1-944x1536.jpg 944w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/img_0024-1.jpg 1179w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">What\u2019s the additional value of being served in a Delta branded cup on an AA flight? Science still doesn\u2019t know. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction One of the most click-baitey articles that travel bloggers write is: &#8220;What is [Airline] Status Worth? [Year] Edition&#8221;. I&#8217;m sick of seeing these articles,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9908"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10403,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions\/10403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}