Brand Loyalty

[webny99]

I don't remember the last time I purchased soda.

I basically stopped drinking soda (it's "pop" in this part of the country) a number of years ago, and now it has the taste and consistency of bubbly corn syrup to me. I'll have ginger ale in a mixed drink now and again, but rarely to never by itself. There's plenty of sparkling water options out there that are better tasting and more refreshing than soda anyways.

[kphoger]

I basically stopped drinking soda (it's "pop" in this part of the country) a number of years ago, and now it has the taste and consistency of bubbly corn syrup to me. I'll have ginger ale in a mixed drink now and again, but rarely to never by itself. There's plenty of sparkling water options out there that are better tasting and more refreshing than soda anyways.

I never completely eliminated soda, but I did cut down quite a bit several years ago.  When I did so, my taste in soda changed from preferring the sweeter-tasting ones to the ones with a little more 'bite'.  For example, I used to prefer Pepsi but now I prefer Coke, I used to prefer Schweppes but now I prefer Canada Dry, and I used to prefer Sprite but now I prefer 7-up.

[JayhawkCO]

I don't remember the last time I purchased soda.

I basically stopped drinking soda (it's "pop" in this part of the country) a number of years ago, and now it has the taste and consistency of bubbly corn syrup to me. I'll have ginger ale in a mixed drink now and again, but rarely to never by itself. There's plenty of sparkling water options out there that are better tasting and more refreshing than soda anyways.

I guess I can't say that I can't remember the last time, as I'll get something in a value meal from fast food occasionally. But I only get fast foot maybe 7-8 times per year, and of those, only get a soda maybe 2-3 times with it. I don't remember the last time I purchased a 2 Liter or 12-pack for myself. That's probably been 7-8 years?

[DTComposer]

I'm in the "there-is-none-but-Cheez-It" category.

I couldn't think of any particular Brand Loyalty I had, but I definitely have (and had) Brand Lethargy: a company that you've been with for years, when you know you can get better prices or service or what-have-you elsewhere, and/or you know the company has not been a good corporate citizen, but since you personally haven't been impacted negatively (yet), you just roll along with it.

Wells Fargo fits this for me. I opened my checking, savings and credit card account with them in 1990, and they're still my main accounts. Every so often I think about switching to a credit union, or somewhere with better savings rates, or credit card points programs, but just...haven't.

[Takumi]

One thing I haven't noticed here is phones.

Probably because it's a topic that rivals, if not surpasses, DST in terms of insanity.

I have too much invested in Apple apps to ever switch to Android.

I've generally been happier on iPhones. The advantages Androids have are things that I generally don't care about, and every iPhone I've had has run extremely smoothly for years (my old 6s Plus still works, though I no longer use it other than to check my mostly-dormant Yahoo email account about once a year as it's the only thing I have that still has the password for it saved and their customer service won't help me with it) while the Android phones I've had were more finicky, and the most recent, a Pixel in 2019 or so, was literally falling apart physically after 3 months. A few months ago I traded my old iPhone 12 in for a 16, with 4 times the storage space, just for futureproofing purposes. I could have stayed with the 12 for awhile longer except I was starting to run out of room for music on it, and I don't stream music on principle. The new phone costs me about the cost of a streaming subscription a month.

[Takumi]

I'm in the "there-is-none-but-Cheez-It" category.

I couldn't think of any particular Brand Loyalty I had, but I definitely have (and had) Brand Lethargy: a company that you've been with for years, when you know you can get better prices or service or what-have-you elsewhere, and/or you know the company has not been a good corporate citizen, but since you personally haven't been impacted negatively (yet), you just roll along with it.

Wells Fargo fits this for me. I opened my checking, savings and credit card account with them in 1990, and they're still my main accounts. Every so often I think about switching to a credit union, or somewhere with better savings rates, or credit card points programs, but just...haven't.

As with State Farm, repeated negative experiences with Wells Fargo corporate drove me elsewhere, in this case a credit union.

[JayhawkCO]

One thing I haven't noticed here is phones.

I have too much invested in Apple apps to ever switch to Android.

I haven't owned anything other than a Samsung in probably 10 years.

[oscar]

I'm a Dr Pepper apologist. You won't ever see me drink Pibb Xtra. Fucker can't even be a doctor like Dr Pepper.

I can drink other sodas, and I'm wildly indifferent to Coke vs Pepsi (both taste the same to me, which is painfully mediocre), but Dr Pepper is THE soda I drink.

I'm intensely loyal to Diet Pepsi rather than Diet Coke. But before I had to stop drinking sugared sodas, I insisted on Coke rather than Pepsi.

For some other brand loyalties in this topic:

-- Apple smartphones (both of my sisters and all of my nieces have iPhones, which means I can get free and easy tech support from them)

-- for cars, I buy Japanese brands (started off with Datsun/Nissan-- I've soured on the latter -- then Honda, then Toyota, now Subaru), once had a BMW, only briefly drove a Plymouth land barge until I could afford something better

-- for TV/internet, I use Comcast, but about once a year it does something that has me on the verge of switching to Verizon or someone else, so I consider this more like "brand disloyalty"

-- for chips, I am a notorious devotee of Ruffles potato chips, but not so much that I won't switch to tortilla chips just for a change of pace

-- I'm deeply locked into the Nikon camera brand (way too many Nikon lenses, not compatible with anything else), but if I were starting all over again I could as easily go with Canon

[bwana39]

I am the Diet Coke guy. I hate Diet Pepsi. I hate Coke Zero even more than Diet Pepsi. I will drink Pepsi Zero Sugar, it is not too heinous.

Dyed in the wool Ford guy. 200K+ no problems. Put me in a GM car and about 125, it starts beating me up. Likewise a Toyota.

[Bruce]

I spent all of 9 months with an iDevice before I got sick of it. Being locked into a dull ecosystem with limited customization (even after jailbreaking the old way) and no true freedom is not the life for me. I want to be able to bend and break my device in the manner I deem fit.

[formulanone]

Nikon camera brand (way too many Nikon lenses, not compatible with anything else), but if I were starting all over again I could as easily go with Canon

Starting over, honestly any brand is as good as another. There might be one or niche lenses which one brand makes and another does not, but amongst Sony / Nikon / Canon there's a lot of similar (but not interchangeable) products with some minor variations. Familiarity is key and some Nikon cameras easily serve lenses dating back 60 years. (On Canon, I need an adapter for EF and FD lenses.)

I personally found Sony's eyecup wasn't far enough away from my nose to make it ergonomically useful, but for a few years their mirrorless full-frames were ahead of the rest. They may have resolved that by now.

And honestly, I like the "retro" Nikon Df and Zf series for which Canon feels no urge to copy. (Although there's rumors of a digital "AE-1", there's zero proof at this time.) Something tells me they'd probably just make a limited run where the price exceeds its usefulness and then the secondary market still manages to inflate the prices.

[jmacswimmer]

Well, this is the perfect thread to have hanging around in the wake of Southwest's news this morning...

I've flown Southwest exclusively for a while for several reasons: My home base airport (BWI) is one of their largest operations, the free checked bags, ease of changing flights (including the ability to "change" to the same flight and get a credit if the fare dropped), and said credits never expiring which was just introduced a couple years ago. But with free checked bags now going away, itinerary changes being removed from the WGA fare (which is being rebranded as "Basic"), and flight credits going back to expiring (6-12 months depending on fare class), all on top of the already-announced shift to assigned seating, this pretty much removes the remaining defining elements that separated Southwest from all the other airlines.

For as long as BWI is the closest airport to me, it may still make sense for me to use Southwest given their large presence there. But moving forward I'll probably start checking other airlines, especially if my destination is a hub for someone else (say, United for going to Denver or Alaska for Seattle).

[JayhawkCO]

Well, this is the perfect thread to have hanging around in the wake of Southwest's news this morning...

I've flown Southwest exclusively for a while for several reasons: My home base airport (BWI) is one of their largest operations, the free checked bags, ease of changing flights (including the ability to "change" to the same flight and get a credit if the fare dropped), and said credits never expiring which was just introduced a couple years ago. But with free checked bags now going away, itinerary changes being removed from the WGA fare (which is being rebranded as "Basic"), and flight credits going back to expiring (6-12 months depending on fare class), all on top of the already-announced shift to assigned seating, this pretty much removes the remaining defining elements that separated Southwest from all the other airlines.

For as long as BWI is the closest airport to me, it may still make sense for me to use Southwest given their large presence there. But moving forward I'll probably start checking other airlines, especially if my destination is a hub for someone else (say, United for going to Denver or Alaska for Seattle).

Yeah. Same story here. I've flown a lot of Southwest lately because it's the same price as the other airlines that fly the route but, when traveling with my son, it's much easier to check a bag. Now, when I run the numbers, it's likely that United will be cheaper for a lot of the flights we take as a family.

[hbelkins]

I've often stated my gripes about Apple phones:

• An inability to "sideload" apps and the requirement to use the Apple App Store.
• They do not accept external storage like TF/MicroSD cards.
• No drag-and-drop file transfer ability to copy music, files, or photos; you have to use the Apple Music/iTunes interface.
• The cost when compared to Android phones.

The main reason I bought an iPhone was because I'm a longtime Mac user.

But as far as computers go, I've owned both Apple Macintosh computers and Windows-based computers. I have no brand loyalty to Windows laptops. I've owned H-P, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and some no-name laptop; all worked just fine.

[1995hoo]

Back in my college and law school days when I had the time and the inclination to tinker with my electronics, I would probably have had an Android phone had such things existed at the time. Nowadays I don't have the time or the patience and I just want everything to work, and in that vein I very much like the way my iPhone and iPad sync a lot of things with each other. (I do not, however, have a Mac.) I did check out an Android phone at the store back when I first got a smartphone in 2011 and I simply liked the iPhone better, though I couldn't give you a firm or clear explanation of why. I don't feel any real "brand loyalty" to Apple, but I haven't felt any motivation to switch to a different brand either. So perhaps more of an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" feeling?

[Scott5114]

The problem with Apple products is they "just work" if you happen to think and use your devices the exact same way the developers do. This is because they provide exactly one way of doing most tasks that works really well. But the second you try to do something the developers never intended, all of a sudden it doesn't "just work" anymore and it becomes impossible.

My go-to example of this is the time I tried to set a wallpaper on an iPad that was taller than the screen resolution. Apple decided that the way that would be handled is to crop the top and bottom of it, and that would be good enough for everyone, rather than than providing an option to select which portion to show. So I was left with a wallpaper showing a belly, rather than a face.

My various experiences with that iPad caused me to decide that I will never use an Apple product again. I firmly believe that in any human-machine interaction, the human should be the one in control and the machine should adjust to what the human wants, not the other way around. And so that rules out Apple for me, as their design ethos does not comport with my beliefs.

[kphoger]

So I was left with a wallpaper showing a belly, rather than a face.

A bare midriff with belly button...  Now that would be one cool wallpaper...

Assuming a female...

[gonealookin]

Well, this is the perfect thread to have hanging around in the wake of Southwest's news this morning...

I've flown Southwest exclusively for a while for several reasons: My home base airport (BWI) is one of their largest operations, the free checked bags, ease of changing flights (including the ability to "change" to the same flight and get a credit if the fare dropped), and said credits never expiring which was just introduced a couple years ago. But with free checked bags now going away, itinerary changes being removed from the WGA fare (which is being rebranded as "Basic"), and flight credits going back to expiring (6-12 months depending on fare class), all on top of the already-announced shift to assigned seating, this pretty much removes the remaining defining elements that separated Southwest from all the other airlines.

For as long as BWI is the closest airport to me, it may still make sense for me to use Southwest given their large presence there. But moving forward I'll probably start checking other airlines, especially if my destination is a hub for someone else (say, United for going to Denver or Alaska for Seattle).

Yeah. Same story here. I've flown a lot of Southwest lately because it's the same price as the other airlines that fly the route but, when traveling with my son, it's much easier to check a bag. Now, when I run the numbers, it's likely that United will be cheaper for a lot of the flights we take as a family.

Some of the changes are good, notably the establishment of assigned seating.  In my observation the open seating causes some behavioral issues by selfish jerks who don't want anybody sitting next to them.  I head to the back of the airplane because that type of person wants to be as close to the front as they can get.

Southwest has the most flights out of Reno so I expect to continue to fly them more than anybody else.  I've had their "Priority" Chase credit card for a number of years.  It has a $149 annual fee, but you get a $75 statement credit once a year (have to pay cash for one flight that's priced at $75 or higher to get it) plus 7500 FF points per year, worth $105 at 1.4 cents per point, so the $180 between those two benefits more than pays for the $149 annual fee.

The four annual free upgrades to A1-A15 boarding that come with that card become irrelevant with assigned seating.  That was useful when I was late to check in and drew the C boarding group.  That is essentially replaced by the one free checked bag for credit card holders.

If those are the changes the $149 credit card is a pretty good deal.  The variables that might make it a lousy deal and would cause me to cancel the card are:

Reducing or eliminating the $75 statement credit; or
Reducing or eliminating the annual 7500 point bonus; or
(the most likely) Devaluing the frequent flier points to significantly less than 1.4 cents per point.

[JayhawkCO]

(the most likely) Devaluing the frequent flier points to significantly less than 1.4 cents per point.

They just announced changes to redemptions as well. It used to be a fixed rate of points per dollar. Now it's going to be dynamic so they can charge more for busy dates/routes. Especially since Southwest only allows redemptions on themselves and Icelandair, this makes their points worth much less in my opinion.

[gonealookin]

(the most likely) Devaluing the frequent flier points to significantly less than 1.4 cents per point.

They just announced changes to redemptions as well. It used to be a fixed rate of points per dollar. Now it's going to be dynamic so they can charge more for busy dates/routes. Especially since Southwest only allows redemptions on themselves and Icelandair, this makes their points worth much less in my opinion.

The incentive to keep playing Southwest's FF points game is the reinstatement of expiration of cash flight credits, which will be after 6 months for the fare levels most people buy.  If you buy a ticket with points and then cancel, those points go back into your account without an expiration date.

I don't buy plane tickets anticipating a cancellation, but plans do change.  If they imposed an expiration date on redeposited FF points that would end the game for me.  I would pay cash using my 2%-on-everything cashback card and be done with it.

[JayhawkCO]

(the most likely) Devaluing the frequent flier points to significantly less than 1.4 cents per point.

They just announced changes to redemptions as well. It used to be a fixed rate of points per dollar. Now it's going to be dynamic so they can charge more for busy dates/routes. Especially since Southwest only allows redemptions on themselves and Icelandair, this makes their points worth much less in my opinion.

The incentive to keep playing Southwest's FF points game is the reinstatement of expiration of cash flight credits, which will be after 6 months for the fare levels most people buy.  If you buy a ticket with points and then cancel, those points go back into your account without an expiration date.

I don't buy plane tickets anticipating a cancellation, but plans do change.  If they imposed an expiration date on redeposited FF points that would end the game for me.  I would pay cash using my 2%-on-everything cashback card and be done with it.

Yeah. The miles game in general is just about over. Long gone are the days where I would take mileage runs, flying to Singapore and immediately turning around just to earn miles and status.