Hidden Benefits of Asiana Airlines Diamond Plus?

Hope all Asiana Diamond Plus Members can input on this tread.
I am a Diamond Plus myself, but earned most on my miles with partner carriers, and can consider myself as a newbie with Asiana Airlines.

The last time I flew with Asiana Airlines was maybe almost 2 years ago. I remember greetings from the manager from all 10 of my flights.

During the flight on Business class, every time I stood up, flight attendant would rush to me and ask me to wait she will clean the restroom first for me. She would come back and tell me its ready for use.

Some times I get first class yellow priority tags even though I am flying on C, but this only happened like 3 flights? So are we actually eligible to get F tags?

Do we get better hotels for transit?

I am just wondering a lot as a Diamond Plus member I just want to use its benefits to its fullest. Hope you guys understand

Thanks

Here's what I've found:

When flying *A:

* At ICN, you get OZ F lounge access when flying OZ as it specifies in the rules, but you also get F access when flying other *A carriers. Note there has been a change in the rules such that newly qualifying members only access the F lounge when flying in C, and I presume this rule will also carry over to those flying *A, but it hasn't yet happened to me, so I have no personal experience with how exactly that will affect things.

When flying OZ:

* When flying international, I am generally greeted by name, even when flying in economy, and asked if there's anything I need. If it's a night flight, I'm often offered eye shades and ear plugs, even if they're not passed out to the other passengers. But when flying domestic, I've only been greeted once in over a dozen flights.

* When flying domestic on an internationally configured aircraft (aircraft with C cabin) you will automatically be upgraded to a C seat, but the service is still Y. If flying on a domestic configured aircraft without a C cabin, you will be given the option of a reserved seat near the front. Domestic configured aircraft I believe are only A320/A321/B737. But some A320/A321 used on domestic routes are international configuration. So when flying domestic, if you're flexible, it might be worthwhile to select a flight with an international configuration, though all domestic flights are so short anyways, it wouldn't matter that much to me.

* When flying internationally, you can almost always get one of the preferred seats near the front, and in addition you can request the seat next to you be blocked, though they generally do this automatically even if you don't ask. But depending on the load, they cannot guarantee it'll remain empty. If the load is light, you may very well get all the seats in your section of the row to yourself.

* When booking a ticket directly with OZ on the phone, you can book even the cheapest economy booking classes without any ticket deadline restrictions. You can purchase your ticket right up to the day of the flight, even though the ticketing deadline might be a month in advance. If the flight is ex-ICN though, you cannot purchase some booking classes at the airport, you must either purchase them via phone using a Korean issued credit card, or at one of their ticketing offices. This is because they prohibit cheap fares from being purchased at the airport, I presume in order to protect travel agents. AFAIK, this rule applies to tickets purchased from any origin, but some locations may not have any ticketing office at the airport, and in the case of the Philippines, tickets cannot be paid for at the airport nor can they be purchased the day of the flight in all cases but rather a day before, though it varies depending on if the manager will give authorization for it or not. This waiver of the ticketing deadline is a huge advantage to me because I can take advantage of the cheap booking classes, but don't need to worry about locking in my purchase too early, and then risking needing to change or cancel and incur penalties. After discovering how valuable it is, I now make all my purchases over the phone with OZ to take advantage of this. Note that this doesn't mean you can book a cheap booking class at the last minute. You still need to book it before whatever deadlines exist, it's just that you don't need to pay for it until just before you travel.

* If your cabin is overbooked/wait listed, and they need to op-up some passengers, the priority is Platinum, Diamond Plus, Diamond. I'm not sure after that what is the priority, and whether *G have priority or not. Within any status level, priority is given based on booking class. So by booking the cheapest booking class, you'll be at the bottom of the list within your status, but will trump all those with a lower status level.

* You are able sometimes to select C meal in advance of your flight by calling OZ. I haven't done this lately, but used to do it quite frequently. Actually did it even a couple of times in Y.

* During blackout periods, you are able to book awards on OZ without any additional penalty. This is actually a published benefit, but it's so very useful to me I thought I'd mention it here. For someone who flies OZ a lot, and wants to book awards during the blackout periods, it makes the less than stellar earn/burn rates seem to not matter as much. And if you're traveling with a companion, the penalty for your companion's award is also waived.

Thanks for your reply nicely said!
Remember they had abalone porridge in F lounge. Evan water...
So are there any other DMPs on this forum or just me and you?

Roger

I can vouch for most of the things A_Lee mentioned, they are indeed going the extra mile for D+, which is a reason why I tend to stick to OZ when I fly out of Korea these days.

I was quite surprised last week when I flew Thai from ICN and got F lounge access at Concourse, I did not expect that^

And when I fly with the family, they always make sure we get the best seats available and extend all benefits to my family. Now that my wife made diamond as well we should be fine.

Also, after making D+ last year, I noticed a slight increase in the amount of upgrades I have been getting. I have noticed from the personal greetings from the FA's onboard that there seem to be quite a few Diamonds and D+ on the China routes and SIN/HKG and naturally fewer on the holiday routes such as BKK, BKI, HKT, REP etc. so the latter are usually easier to score upgrades on.

What actually happened a couple of times is that I asked if I could upgrade using points, they acknowledge I am D+ and after a couple of calls they upgrade me without any points deducted.

So for those of us flying OZ a fair bit, there are definitively perks that make D+ worth it, but of course it is useless when flying other * carriers.

Not completely useless - get all the usual *G benefits, and once have lifetime D+ there is no need to requalify every year.

I can report that this is now enforced at ICN, in April was given F lounge access on Y ticket, today only C lounge. Staff both at F and C lounge apologized profusely and told me rule had been changed in 2011.

This is a joke. Its not that the F lounge is full at all. Or special. So really, by forcing a few D+ into the C lounge they achieve nothing other than badwill.

My thought exactly. The F lounge is quiet and can handle the odd D+. A few times when I was there, less than 5 people were using it.
The strange thing for me is that I became D+ after this rule change become official in print, but they still gave me F lounge access for the first 6 months as D+. I have another flight out of ICN on Thursday, will see what happens then.

I've been in the F lounge on a number of occasions where it was crowded enough that I could understand if some paying F customers complained about why there were so many people there. For instance, the business center, with I think about 5 computers, was completely full. The dining area also was completely full. There was once or twice when I saw all the showers occupied. The entire lounge is never close to being full, but certain resources were being used to their full capacity. IMHO, the benefit should only be made available if it doesn't affect the paying F passengers. If OZ allows too many people to utilize those benefits such that it negatively impacts the F passengers, and they take their business elsewhere, OZ will end up eliminating F alltogether, and that won't be to anyone's advantage, and all D+ members will be left without F lounge or F checkin.

Now granted the F resources are not used to capacity most of the time. But there are times when they were. So I fully understand OZ's position in wanting to adjust the program to alleviate any concerns of the F passengers. I don't agree with the details of how they handled it, being they technically eliminated some promised benefits for those already in the queue, working towards that status. But I have to disagree with the other members that the lounge wasn't full and that they did nothing but create badwill by this move. Badwill was created, but it was likely the result of an attempt to quickly reverse badwill on the part of some F passengers.

As for me, I'm still able to access the F lounge when flying Y, and expect to be able to do so until November, being I earned my status before the change in the benefits were announced. After November though, I don't expect to, unless I make it to 500K status miles by then.

One note I should add about certain F lounge resources being overused. Those observations were some time ago, when I believe the JFK route was operating in the evening, and if I recall the LAX flight in the evening also had F. I'm not 100% of those details, being I didn't really pay too much attention at the time about what time the F flights left. At the moment, I believe 16:30 is the last F flight of the day for OZ. It was in the evening when the F lounge was most crowded, with the majority of the passengers being D+ (or Platinum) but flying in Y or C. Being I believe they no longer have any F flights departing in the evening, this overusage situation likely doesn't exist anymore. I haven't seen it for quite a while, even on peak days. But the change in the rule was implemented back when it was a problem. If I'm correct in my analysis, perhaps there is room for OZ to re-evaluate that rule change. But should they ever need to add F flights in the evening again, or change existing F flights back to the evening, they'd be right back in the same position, and couldn't quickly reverse it.

Just to clarify, I do agree that rules are there to be followed. I don't mind not being able to use the F lounge, just find they way it was handled was a bit strange, as I was never entitled to use it in the first place, so they kinda got me hooked on the free Haagen Dasz...

But I will move on and so will the slight badwill that naturally comes along when you are denied a benefit you got used to.

Just another datapoint about the F checkin and lounge at ICN. I arrived today at about 18:00 and the F checkin was a mess, with maybe 15 people. The C queue only had 4 people. In the F lounge it was busier than normal, and only one shower open, which I used, leaving none available, and all the seats in the dining area taken.

However, at the F checkin was a famous Korean actor, Ahn Sung Ki, along with his entourage, and even a camera crew interviewing him. He was also in the F lounge with his entourage, and just departed on the LAX flight. Seems he's going to have his hands and feet imprinted at Grauman's Chinese Theatre tomorrow. Without him the F checkin would have been much more reasonable, but still at dinner time the dining area can get maximum use even though I don't think this was a particularly busy travel day. Being I believe all flights with F already left, everyone here I presume were Platinum or Diamond Plus.

Edit: Correction, I just had a look at the monitors, and OZ 202, the flight to LAX with F, departed 3.5 hours late at 20:01 rather than the scheduled 16:30. So this was a bit of an unusual case today, with all the F passengers from that flight, along with any Plats or D+'s on that flight, combined with the usual Plats and D+'s going on the evening flights where there is no F.

Quite ironic that the other Korean to have his hands and feet imprinted at Grauman's is the other UNICEF spokesman on Asiana's public service announcement - Mr. Storm Shadow Lee Byunghun. I guess Asiana has an insider at Hollywood. Lol.

As far as I could see, he was nowhere to be seen around the F check-in or in the F lounge. I hope he was on a different OZ flight, or heaven forbid in economy, and didn't take KE instead. I was thinking the same thing as you about how ironic it was that both UNICEF spokesmen were chosen.

There was one male OZ employee that escorted Ahn Sung Ki and his entourage. He also made a few visits into the lounge to check on the party during their stay. Normally it's all female attendants in the F lounge and this male OZ employee isn't anywhere to be seen, but I have seen him escort passengers on a couple other occasions. So my guess is that he only shows up for when VIP customers are flying.

Do you mean that you were abel to order C meals in Y simply because of D+? I had no idea if this is the case...