I find myself doing a double-take every time I open my wallet lately. In the spot, where for 14 years sat a Midwest Express (then Midwest Airlines) Mastercard, is now a new card that says "FRONTIER." Below it, a badger stares back at me with a melancholy look on its face.
I keep forgetting it's there. The card number is the same, the frequent flier miles do just about the same thing (other than fly to Europe, since the re-branded airline doesn't have an agreement with Northwest-turned-Delta).
Yet, that familiar credit card, the one that I used enough to earn trips to Mexico, St. Martin and Europe, is gone. I'm trying to decide if it matters.
On one hand, it doesn't matter at all. While I appreciated that Midwest Airlines was a Milwaukee-based company, its successor continues to buy advertising with OnMilwaukee.com and flies to more destinations than before. If anything, my loyalty now extends mostly to my clients, but I realize that's a special situation.
What really mattered -- that first-class service, with wide leather seats, free champagne and good meals -- disappeared long ago. Frontier is just another airline to me, and price and convenience are the sole factors in my ticket-buying decision. This month, I bought two airlines tickets: one from Frontier and one from AirTran. Both fly direct, and both were the cheapest available at the time of purchase.
But does brand matter? When I'm faced with my annual fee that renews in January (I asked to get that waived; they said no), I will decide whether to keep my Frontier card or switch to a different airline's card. Southwest is buying AirTran, but their frequent flier system is a little weird. Delta has an American Express Card, but I'm not really an AMEX sorta guy.
Bottom line: that little badger in my wallet is just another brand that doesn't matter to me. Unless that card has a big old-school Brewers logo on it, it just doesn't resonate. And, at this point, unless a Brewers credit card came with no fee and earned me free miles, I wouldn't especially care, either.
Brand loyalty can matter, but in this case, it doesn't. There is no local guy to support here. And this is coming from the guy who once paid extra for Packers checks, until I wondered what the heck I was doing.
So for now, there's a cutesy badger in my wallet. And he'll stay there until something better comes along.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
