Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - am i asking too much?

Hi

Many of you here will be of the belief that MPC provides direct upgrades from green to gold for those members who accumulate 60 000 miles within any one year. I, perhaps as a result of the opinions expressed on this board, also firmly believed that this was the case. I was therefore quite dismayed when my request to have this upgrade was rejected.

I flew on a 4 continent OWE ex Australia in Y which finished in March of this year. I was upgraded to silver, when my club miles were reset and when I finished I had approx 31 000 club miles left (thus I had accumulated over 61 000 club miles in total).

I wrote in to MPC a couple of months ago requesting the upgrade but this was firmly rejected with a 2 page letter describing the "structure" of MPC and how it is not possible to obtain a direct upgrade from green to gold.

I subsequently wrote to them again and was met with the response that "occassionally club members might be exceptionally offered entry to gold based on their individual travelling patter, travel frequencies, travel destinaions and class of travels during a one year period".

Well, I suppose I did accumulate my miles with an aud2500 ticket so perhaps I am do not fit in the above category. The question is should I keep persisting or should I just be happy with silver for the moment?

THanks

IN order to qualify for GOLD, you would need to first qualify for SILVER - which is 30K. Then after it resets to zero, you would need an ADDITIONAL 60K to qualify for GOLD. I think that is where the problem laid. It's not from zero to 60K for GOLD but zero to 90K.

MPC is one of the hardest to achieve from no status in all oneWorld FF programmes. Are you sure you'd rather not join QANTAS. You'd be more than 3/4 way to PLATINUM by now.

[This message has been edited by Guy Betsy (edited 08-31-2002).]

Thats how the MPO programme is set up, and it is like GB said the hardest programme to achieve a higher status but when you have achieved it there is more status attched then some other programmes where it doesn't mean much to be one of the high tier members.

UA's programme for example is easy t get status but the benefits are poor if you compare to what a Diamond of CX gets.

I guess you want to decide based on which airline you will fly most.

MPO is quite strict and they do want to keep their club exclusive, a good thing when you have the tier.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Chek Lap Kok:
UA's programme for example is easy t get status but the benefits are poor if you compare to what a Diamond of CX gets.
</font>

Not sure about UA, but AA is more or less the same to get EXP status, but once you have it you get more or less all the same benefits as MPC, AND you get effectively 3.25miles per mile in business, rather than 1.25 in MPC. It sems to me that this is a very compelling reason to use AAdvantage rather than MPC.

All of you are rite in that the structure of MPO is such that u need to qualify for silver and then fly another 60,000 miles for gold. However, my mum got her gold by flying 30,000 miles more as a silver member. I found this to be bizzare but it actually happened. She asked me to check her miles on the internet and it was gold. I guess MPO is not only a "difficult" programme but it is also a mysterious one! Creepy!

It's called target aquisition of potential high value members. Your mom probably flew using expensive tickets or met a frequency criteria. This type of targeting happens in several industries namely airline and credit cards.

Mysterious is the right word but it is also something that they would not like their competitors to know.

chiym, the best people to discuss this issue is between your travel agency manager and your their local Cathay Pacific sales rep.

Thanks for all the input and advice guys. I think I'll just be happy with with silver for the moment even though it means I will have to sweat it out with the masses on my upcoming OWE.

I don't think I will try to push my luck as I do not want to create a bad name for my self - I think that reading some of the stories on this forum somehow led me to believe that the upgrade from green to gold was common place.

One consolation is that MPC does provide its silver members with lounge access when departing on CX flights - one privelege which I don't believe any other OW FF program has.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by chiym:
One consolation is that MPC does provide its silver members with lounge access when departing on CX flights - one privelege which I don't believe any other OW FF program has.</font>

BA provides lounge access for Silver members, and an 'open doors policy' at Gold.

that is the official rule (you need to get another 60k to get gold after reaching silver)

but usually, if you are able to show that you flown 60k in the past 12 months (although the o****er was reset after reaching 30k), they will let you get gold.

you can try to explain that to them, and tell them had you been flying UA/AA, you would have reached that 2nd tier level already.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Kiltboys:
BA provides lounge access for Silver members, and an 'open doors policy' at Gold.</font>

CX's SILVER level is Oneworld's RUBY.

BA's SILVER level is Oneworld's SAPHIRRE level which has lounge access worldwide when travelling on Oneworld flights. BA does not have a RUBY tier and all other Oneworld FF programmes which have a RUBY tier cannot access their own lounges when travelling in coach. Only CX SILVER members have lounge access when travelling coach on CX flights only.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by christep:
t AA is more or less the same to get EXP status, </font>

Not really. AA PLT = MPC GOLD (OW Sapphire). Presumably AA EXP = MPC Diamond (OW Emerald). chiym could have been at least OW Sapphire (AA PLT) if he had done an AA PLT challenge. AA EXP is earned at 100,000 miles or points.

Not sure I understand your point Terenz. I was comparing CX Diamond with AA EXP. You need 210,000 miles from scratch to earn or 120,000 miles to retain Diamond. AA EXP is 100,000 miles to earn and retain, and you get nearly all of the same benefits as CX Diamond, PLUS between 2 and 3 times as many miles to go towards award flights.

Well, it is my turn. I joined MPC last August (which means my original "year" runs until the end of August this year). I fly CX a lot, but for the first few months, I credited it all to AA, where I made EXP last year, and this year too. After finishing off with EXP, I started crediting to MPC, and I am now Silver (with the counter reset a while ago). I am now a hair's breadth from hitting 60K tier miles, and will certainly do so during my original year, although my counter is now reset for the "silver" year. In theory, I have to renew to Silver (which I will do ASAP), and then load up on another 30K to get to Gold.

In practice, from reading this board, it could be possible to run right through and get upgraded to Gold, since I will reach 60K tier miles within my original year. The evidence on being able to do this is mixed, with some people being able to do so, others not. This year, I've flown about 50-60 segments in CX, much of it in paid premium classes. Do you think that would be enough for them to make an "exception", or we talking rulebound no waivers no favors? What do you think the best path to do so is? Through my travel agent, or directly to MPC? Who should I write my letter to?

Fundamentally, I am OW Emerald, so I shouldn't really care. However, I do find the ability to do on-line check-in quite good, and I have a sense that MPC elite tiers have better dibs at upgrades. Also, it is good to have some Asia Miles floating around for upgrading on CX, which I can't do anymore with AAdvantage.

And frankly, a packed solid NRT-HKG flight on a 744, where every MPC Gold got upgraded (I figure that because of the profusion of "Mr. XXX on flight 505 please come to the service counter, plus the fact that three MPC Golds had their BP rejected at boarding), but not me, got me interested in reaching Gold sooner...

What's valuable as a Diamond changes with your circumstances... for me when I used to fly a lot on business it was the upgrades, but now I am trying to maintain Diamond largely on my own money it is the access to any flight on the cheapest published fare at 24 hours notice which is great.

GOLD MEMBERS have guaranteed economy class seats up to 72hours prior departure.