well, all said and done ... if you want J pay J etc.

Let's assume however, Gold Member, who is actually Diamond as he says , is right and has suffered amongst the unwashed whilst some high school brat got op-upped, then he has a valid point.

Many many years ago, I was still a student and flew HKG-JFK rtn on Cathay (my first ever long-haul Cathay flight. I signed up for MPC two weeks before. On the way back, the 2 of us travellig got upgraded to J, and the friendly soul at JFK bluntly said to me Cathay hoped that this gesture would entice me to fly with them more often. I have been a CX FF ever since, spending anything between 10'000 and 20'000 euros a year on mostly J travel since. So, Gold Member, the point is that upgrading the unwashed brats creates future revenues, while as for you --- they already caught you in their marketing net. Now the balance between pleasing your existing elites and creating new ones is obviously a delicate one.