Originally Posted by
economyman
I will have to review my future travel plans and reconsider my position vis-a-vis ELAL. At the moment I give a lot of revenue to ELAL and as a self-employed person I decide exactly where to put my money. I am pretty sure that I spend more than some PLs on an annual basis as I usually buy full fare tickets and travel quite a lot. I know many PL's who travel on corporate rates that are significantly reduced and thus therefore give ELAL less money than me.
I guarantee that there are even more PL's that
don't get corporate rates and that give LY more annual revenue than almost all, if not absolutely all, GL's no matter how high a tarrif they pay.
The bottom line of FF programs is to reward customer loyalty. El Al is now, correctly, viewing loyalty in terms of annual revenue. The fact that a GL pays $400 more for a particular flight DOES NOT outweigh and is far less significant than the PL who spends $20,000 more than the GL on an annual basis. All major airlines work on this premise and now El Al has followed suit.
In addition, economyman, you admit that you give plenty of revenue to BA - that is why El Al's move is correct, even in your case, because they want to increase the revenue you give them. Now, to get the upgrades on LY, you'll have to give them more of your business instead of BA, and get to PL. THAT is life.