well, despite what I said above, I agree that I'm also somewhat concerned about the "cheapening" of the CX premium cabins. so, I can understand the status quo of MPO/AM being one of the least-generous FFPs around and there's not many "freebies" to even the highest tiers.

but, what I wanted to say was, then CX needs to understand the compromise - with the status quo of the FFP it only serves the purpose of encouraging loyalty to a certain extent; beyond which people MIGHT start to divert their business to somewhere else. I said "MIGHT" because maybe the samples here on FT are biased and we're among the minority, many DMs I know actually have a hard time understanding all the basics of only the CX program itself already, not to mention about maximizing further values coming out of all their flying - e.g. many of them thought that the CX AmEx is the best card in town to earn Asia Miles !!

so, maybe the status quo is indeed a good balance for CX as a whole - encouraging loyalty to a certain good extent without cheapening of the premium cabins. I think they should have the most relevant data / customer understanding to make the best balance. but I guess handing out some (a small amount) of SWUs (esp if very selectively) wouldn't hurt their premium image too while helping encourage loyalty/goodwill. in fact, if I remember right, in the early 90's before the time of Asia Miles / new MPO, in the old MPO upgrade certs annually were actually part of the benefits for Lifetime members, or maybe DM too, don't remember exactly.

on the side, in fact I think CX also benefits from AAdv being a generous program too - while I credit to AAdv after having enough for CX DM, most often I actually still fly CX/KA quite often, and so while MPO/AM isn't getting my business, CX as a whole still is, so maybe that's good enough for them. but, of course, in that case I don't necessarily need to stick with CX/AAdv - but often go with Star/SQ/LH/etc as well esp when the schedule/prices make much more sense...