Andrew Yiu

Hello everyone,

Today (Dec 9) we’re launching the 2011 Air Canada Top Tier Program. We’d like to highlight some of the biggest program enhancements for 2011 right here.

Launch of eUpgrades

If there’s been one common message from our Top Tier members over the past few years, it’s been this: “Enough with the wallpaper!” Last year as we began work on our electronic upgrade product – known as “eUpgrades” – we kept this in mind and entirely rethought how our Top Tier upgrades work. In the end, we landed on something whereby all of the upgrade currency – now “eUpgrade Credits” – can be used more freely by tying it more closely to the Economy Class fare paid. Some key items worth mentioning:

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For full details on the program (upgrade request process, eligible bookings, credits required, etc), we invite you to visit aircanada.com/eupgrades. We’ll be interested to see your feedback over the coming weeks, especially when the product launches in the airports, for travel on March 1, 2011.

New Super Elite Select Privilege: Maple Leaf Club for a Friend

Some of you may recall this as a Select Privilege we had a few years ago. We hope it's interesting to Super Elite members who are looking for options other than eUpgrade Credits and/or Bonus Miles.

New Prestige Select Privilege: 35% Discount on Maple Leaf Club

We recognize Maple Leaf Lounge access is valuable to our Prestige members, hence the additional Maple Leaf Lounge One-Time Guest Pass included in one of our Select Privilege options this year. Furthermore, as you may recall from last year, we introduced a 15% Maple Leaf Club discount for all Prestige members, but your feedback made it clear that this was not enough. Therefore, this year we will offer a 35% Maple Leaf Club discount, applicable to all Maple Leaf Club membership options, as a Select Privilege. This is well over double (in some cases triple) the discount offered by other airlines to their equivalent tier members when purchasing lounge membership.

Air Canada Minimum Flight Requirement

In order to better manage the cost of our program, and to ensure that we’re delivering benefits to our true frequent flyers, we have introduced a “minimum flight requirement.” This will be considered during your 2012 Top Tier qualification year (January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011), so it will not impact your 2011 Top Tier status.

The flight requirement is 5 Status Flight Segments or 10,000 Status Miles on eligible flights operated by Air Canada or on behalf of Air Canada by Jazz, Air Georgian Limited (doing business as Air Alliance), Exploits Valley Air Services LTD, Central Mountain Air and Sky Regional Airlines. Note that you can reach the Minimum Flight Requirement on Status Flight Segments, even if you qualify based on Status Miles – or vice versa. You will be able to track your qualification towards this requirement online at aeroplan.com beginning in the spring of 2011.

The minimum flight requirement counts as part of your regular qualification requirement, which remains the same for 2012:

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We hope that you’ll be pleased with the changes we’re introducing this year, and as we mentioned last year, we will continue to refine the program based on your comments and ideas going forward.

Happy holidays, everyone!

(Please note that the links mentioned above and Aeroplan 2011 section is not active yet - they will be activated later on this morning)

RCyyz

Thanks Andrew. Some aspects of the eCerts sound appealing!

I'd post more but gotta rush off now.

YEG USER

Thanks for posting the information. These appear to be actual enhancements instead of "spin."

Good to hear that ecerts will be valid for 1 year and that we can upgrade companions without travelling with them! How many companions can we nominate and is there restrictions on if they are family members?

Well, that answers my question about crossing a threshold in December 2010. I'm only 400 miles short of the next cert level and I have no need for SWU's that are valid until February; looks like my 2010 is now officially over!

Jasper2009

Thank´s for the info, Andrew! ^

It´s good to hear that upgrade requests are now automatically transferred from the regular waitlist to the "airport waitlist".

Interesting it´s now possible to upgrade other people when not travelling on the same flight, I guess many people will appreciate this new feature (though it will probably reduce upgrade chances).

Now of course, I´m waiting for the most important info: how many credits do we get / how many do we need to upgrade....

yyzgigi

Thanks to Andrew for breaking the news right a midnight. The enhancement look good, will be very interested in the details.

jarusoba

So a cert that we earn in December will expire in 2 months

If I booked a B fare, do I have to have earned the credit before I can request an upgrade, even though I'm sure I will have enough credit at the day of the flight?

jarusoba

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TravelTip

Thanks for this, Andrew! These changes all sound excellent! Wonderful work.

I am extremely impressed by the responsiveness of Air Canada to customer feedback, and I know all of us on FlyerTalk very much appreciate your clear and detailed communication. Thanks for doing what you do!

Away from YYZ

AWESOME! But too bad they will not arrive before I leave for my last trip in 2010 this Sat.... a SSWU cert will help...

YEG USER

Will there be a code that can be used for "show upgradable fares" for post March 1, 2011? I assume that any codes would not be posted publically on the Air Canada website link provided.

quank

Agree that there is lots of positive. However, biggest impact IMO is whether credit system provide equal or more value than current system for each status level. Waiting in excited anticipation!

King Chung Huang

There's lots of details at that link Andrew mentioned. Looks very interesting. I like the part where you get refunded credits if you don't get upgraded on the entire itinerary.

ceaton

Here's how many we get (EDIT: Apologies, this is for threshold crossing bonuses, no data yet on how many you can pick for Select privileges):
http://www.aircanada.com/en/aeroplan...eupgrades.html

And here's how many it costs:
http://www.aircanada.com/en/aeroplan...lculation.html

I like a lot of these changes, my only concern as a segment-based FF is that the credits are all based on distance, not flights. I'll be on ~70 AC flights next year but will have fewer upgrade opportunities (I guess we cannot all win).

quank

This link is for threshold awards - I tried to surf around and couldn't find how much we each get for SE, E, P at the beginning of the year - Did I just miss it in my excited surfing to the various pages?

jarusoba

Hmmmm.... Another cut in benefits!!

An SSWU Canada-Asia would be equivalent to 20 credits.
An SWU Canada-Asia would be equivalent to 8 credits.

20K threshold only gives an SE 15 credits... less than an SWU equivalent.

This is going to suck.