I'm going to have to agree with airbus/sensfan on this one. If you fly in the states on UA/US/etc. you get 100% status miles on the cheapest fare buckets. This does not happen within Canada on AC. Not only are the Tango fares a reduced %, they are non-status.

Although I've qualified for E/SE over the past several years, I have often had to fly Tango fares as this is what the corporate TA booked. Even though I often have to fly a Tango fare, given my years of status with AC I'd say that I am still an "elite candidate." Quite a few people I know would have earned status if Tango fares qualified for status.

On a lot of routes the difference in fare is now fairly significant between T/T+. I just looked up YEG-YVR for mid September; the difference is 65 dollars per direction. A $99 T fare has an equivalent T+ fare of $164 (in this case 65% premium). The fact that 1/4 of AC's fare buckets don't even earn status miles often makes earning status miles difficult for people; not to mention making it difficult to earn enough for status.

I'm sure that if UA/US made their lowest 1/4 of their fare buckets ineligible for EQM that they'd have a significant reduction in the number of their elite passengers.