Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Discretion MPO tier bump-ups

Just logged on to the MPO homepage to find my club miles had been reset to zero and to see the image of the silver membership card. Strange thing is - I was 5858 miles short of qualification for silver and there's still more than 4 months till the end of the membership year (31/12/09).

Can anyone speculate on the reasons for this? I know the loyalty manager sometimes authorises requalification if you're just short of the required miles/sectors or have flights booked just after the end of the membership year. But I was more than a few miles short and it's certainly not the end of the membership year. So an upgrade (ie not requalification) is very surprising.

Does anyone have experience or insights into this? I should mention that I wrote to CX customer relations recently praising the crew on a recent flight when I became ill, but I doubt this would cause them to do a tier bump-up (would cust rel even have the discretion to do this?)

Any comments appreciated..

Welcome to FT.

Things like this have been known to happen. The most likely scenario (I'm guessing) is that in the last 12 months you've done 30,000 miles on CX but some of the flights were before you registered for Marco Polo.

CX has an internal counter and if you hit 30,000 miles in the the last 12 months, they'll give you MPC Silver even if you have no MPC membership at all and are Asiamiles only.

However, that's only one possible explanation. There are probably many others.

Just logged on to the MPO homepage to find my club miles had been reset to zero and to see the image of the silver membership card. Strange thing is - I was 5858 miles short of qualification for silver and there's still more than 4 months till the end of the membership year (31/12/09).

Can anyone speculate on the reasons for this? I know the loyalty manager sometimes authorises requalification if you're just short of the required miles/sectors or have flights booked just after the end of the membership year. But I was more than a few miles short and it's certainly not the end of the membership year. So an upgrade (ie not requalification) is very surprising.

Does anyone have experience or insights into this? I should mention that I wrote to CX customer relations recently praising the crew on a recent flight when I became ill, but I doubt this would cause them to do a tier bump-up (would cust rel even have the discretion to do this?)

Any comments appreciated.. I very much doubt your letter of praise was the cause of the bump up although it may have drawn attention to your account.

The same happened to my wife around a year ago when she was moved up from GR to SL after only 8/9,000 miles. We later found out it was because she bought a full fare J ticket to Dubai and that apparently was enough to demonstrate loyalty! That said, she was gold for a couple of years before we started having children and she dropped to back to GR in 2007.

CX has an internal counter and if you hit 30,000 miles in the the last 12 months, they'll give you MPC Silver even if you have no MPC membership at all and are Asiamiles only.

Would that counter include my CX flights that I opted to be credited to my British Airways FF!!

I opted to go with BA as BA Silver is a higher tier than CX Silver. Unfortuantely, I lost BA Silver as I failed to fly 4 BA sectors (2 business trips to London were cancelled!) and now I'm at risk of losing CX Silver as well!!

If this counter turns in my favor, I guess I would make it for CX Silver for next year!

Let me share the story with you.

My club miles has been reset to zero recently and they offered me a silver card (fyi, my membership year started in June and I flew 15.5 club sectors between Jun and Aug, mainly HKG-TPE vv, mainly business class). Probably the loyalty manager of CX keeps track of this and offers me the silver card.

Would that counter include my CX flights that I opted to be credited to my British Airways FF!!

I think it's rather unlikely that any miles credited to another FFP would count for anything on CX.

Let me share the story with you.

My club miles has been reset to zero recently and they offered me a silver card (fyi, my membership year started in June and I flew 15.5 club sectors between Jun and Aug, mainly HKG-TPE vv, mainly business class). Probably the loyalty manager of CX keeps track of this and offers me the silver card.

Well, I hope a loyalty manager keeps track of my loyal 55,000 miles every year and finally give me the Gold!

:)

My friend was about 2k points short of re-qualifying for silver. MPC retained her at silver despite the shortfall. She flies discounted economy long-haul all the time and does 2-3 flights a year.

Just logged on to the MPO homepage to find my club miles had been reset to zero and to see the image of the silver membership card. Strange thing is - I was 5858 miles short of qualification for silver and there's still more than 4 months till the end of the membership year (31/12/09).

Can anyone speculate on the reasons for this? I know the loyalty manager sometimes authorises requalification if you're just short of the required miles/sectors or have flights booked just after the end of the membership year. But I was more than a few miles short and it's certainly not the end of the membership year. So an upgrade (ie not requalification) is very surprising.

Does anyone have experience or insights into this? I should mention that I wrote to CX customer relations recently praising the crew on a recent flight when I became ill, but I doubt this would cause them to do a tier bump-up (would cust rel even have the discretion to do this?)

Any comments appreciated..

I had this happen to me in may (original end of membership year was set to be nov 2009), and mentioned it on this board. I was about 4000 short of silver, but had an itin already confirmed for august that would allow me to reach silver. Would that be why you were moved up a tier?

Another reason could be the one that midlevels pointed out. I did a trip that was counted towards AM, but not MPC since I wasn't a member. That trip was done approx 6 mths before I joined.

I do believe they look at a certain revenue level for qualifying us.
thats why some discounted ticket will not count, because they aren't making money (I guess, they are only putting numbers on the balance sheet)

I even heard stories that they will just give you a silver card if they see you have 2 RT Long Haul J tickets.

once we have the "status" we will be trapped and try to stay in the mileage game.

once we have the "status" we will be trapped and try to stay in the mileage game.

^ very true. That's why we meet here.;)

Well giving someone a Silver card doesn't cost CX much. You can't access oneworld lounges so CX doesn't incur costs to other airlines, you get the CX lounge benefit which is largely a fixed cost to CX. But you generate a lot of goodwill with customers. So if they identify customers that seem to have a trend of good spending as Green/Asiamiles members, I'm sure they are happy to bump them up.

I have a friend who was thousands of miles short of Silver and still months left prior to the end of the membership year and got bumped to that tier. He didn't write any letters praising anyone.

Well giving someone a Silver card doesn't cost CX much. You can't access oneworld lounges so CX doesn't incur costs to other airlines, you get the CX lounge benefit which is largely a fixed cost to CX. But you generate a lot of goodwill with customers. So if they identify customers that seem to have a trend of good spending as Green/Asiamiles members, I'm sure they are happy to bump them up.
Providing such stuff such as shower facility, a bowl of noodle + some mini bites/drinks certainly won't cause grief cost-wise to CX.

I had this happen to me in may (original end of membership year was set to be nov 2009), and mentioned it on this board. I was about 4000 short of silver, but had an itin already confirmed for august that would allow me to reach silver. Would that be why you were moved up a tier?

Another reason could be the one that midlevels pointed out. I did a trip that was counted towards AM, but not MPC since I wasn't a member. That trip was done approx 6 mths before I joined.

This is interesting. But you have to wonder why they would do a 'anticipation' bump-up if you would qualify a few months down the track anyway. Perhaps as other posters have suggested it creates a lot of customer goodwill.

But this raises another question - there must be many CXGRs who have confirmed future itineraries within/just outside the membership year. So how do they identify the ones to be bumped up out of this group as a whole?

And I wonder how large a percentage bump-ups would be in the composition of all annual silver tier attainments. I guess only CX loyalty mgt has the answer to this...

I do believe they look at a certain revenue level for qualifying us.
thats why some discounted ticket will not count, because they aren't making money (I guess, they are only putting numbers on the balance sheet)

I even heard stories that they will just give you a silver card if they see you have 2 RT Long Haul J tickets.

once we have the "status" we will be trapped and try to stay in the mileage game.


I think CX does comp Silver status by looking at revenue
Here is my example from Apr 2007 - Jan 2008

Apr 2007 - AA Y flight LGA-DCA one way
Oct 2007 - CX Y flight LAX-HKG return (B class but credited to Advantage for Plat challenge
Dec 2007 - CX J flight YVR-HKG one way (I class but got double credit due to an in-air mechanical and change to new flight)
Jan 2008 - CX J flight HKG-YVR (I class, op-up at the gate and got credited F)
G

Ended up with 26000 club miles and got comp Silver 3 weeks after HKG-YVR flight. Then my next qualifying year, I had to fly 60193 club miles before getting CX Gold between Feb-Dec 08 though most travels were on AA due to travel pattern change.

My mom also got Silver one yr with 28000 miles, but she got like 38000 the year before. And her pattern is 2 RT Long haul tix and may be one short/mid North American flight to be exact.

Hope this example helps you gbkid202

Hi,

Is it possible at all that some of these instances of tier bumps are results of system glitches?

Thanks,

shakermaker

Hi,

Is it possible at all that some of these instances of tier bumps are results of system glitches?

Thanks,

shakermaker

Certainly possible, but even my TA sources tell me, 2 CX J long haul and MPC usually comps Silver status.

Hi Francis,

Thanks for your reply. So this is completely discretionary?

Couple of Y class round trips to JFK accrue 32,xxx miles, which by itself takes you to Silver. Guess since J/F to AKL and back may fall short I can see how a discretionary bump could be made.

Thanks again,

shakermaker