Canadian Airlines Plus - Status changes on yearly basis only now.

Hi All..
I just got off the phone with CdnPlus, I am currently Club, and an empress lounge member. I will be doing 33000 miles of flying next month (I've flown 3000 this year so far).

I called CDN because I when I hit the 35000 mark (for gold) I'll be in Asia and I have planned a few inter-Asian flight in economy on CX and I wanted to be able to use their lounges.

I asked if a manager could have my account changed to gold status based on what I have ticketed. Hoping for a simple.. "Okay makes sense - Yes", I was surprised to hear that there have been changes (as of 1 Jan 2000 they claim).

The first being that status changes will only happen on a yearly basis, so even though I will hit gold at the end of April I will not get my gold package or be able to use gold perks until next year when the new packages come out. No exception will be made (so I'm told).

This bothers me, I was more then willing to wait until the end of April to be gold since my flying won't be done until then, but to have to wait until next March...

The second thing she pointed out was that there used to be an appeals board so if you flew 34999 miles in a year you could ask to be bumped to gold status, now a mile under and you don't hit your new status level!.. (Again she claimed no exceptions would be made to this rule!)

She did go talk to a manager before telling me these things.. Did I just get an unhelpful agent or are these infact the new rules??

I wonder if AC has also made the same changes??

Later,
-Ty

This can not be true and if it is it's ridiculous and just another attempt to rip us off. I suggest that you write an email to Cplus@cdnair.ca or call another agent.

I was just looking at the CDN website...
If you look at: http://www.cdnair.ca/eng/cpi/02join/mainb.html (Which was edited on March 8, 2000 10:47:22 PM GMT) it seems to confirm what I was told...

If you look at the first paragraph under Executive Platinum, on the second line it says:
"Club, Gold and Executive Platinum benefits apply from March 1 - February 28 in the year following qualification. Membership status is adjusted automatically upon qualification."

Is it just me or does this quote have 2 possible (opposite) meanings?, 1) saying that your benefits apply only for the year after you qualify, and 2) saying that you are automatically bumped up as soon as you qualify?

If (no 1) is true then, Yes - it does look like yet another way to rip us off!

I would probably be looking for a new oneworld airline to put my points into but the 33000 will top off my CDN plus account with enough for a J to Australia on Qantas.

Oh well.. the loss of perks continues...
-Ty

Immediately apply for an AA account, then for the Platinum challenge. Have all you miles credited to this AA account. Check out the forums for AA Challenge for the rules, but after about 16K miles, or 10K points, you will have oneworld lounge access. The problem with not having a card may be resolved by the oneworld partner being able access your status from the printout on the boarding pass: ruby, sapphire, etc.

Call AA as soon as you can and explain all this to them. Good luck.

But before taking the AA Platinum Challenge, make sure that you will fly 4 segment on AA in order to be eligible, or else you still get nothing.