The night is always darkest before the dawn! Doubling of the redemption rates, while increasing earn rates by significantly less, is a bit of a kick in the teeth, but perhaps the ROP program was too generous for too long? Please don't flame... I'm just throwing the idea on the table!
On the face of it, the 1 Sep 2014 changes to ROP don't look good (in fact, they look really bad) and will be enough, I suspect, for many to switch their business away from TG. However, I'm hopeful there are announcements yet to come and the final implementation of the changes will not be as dire as they seems right now.
Just had a chat to the incredibly helpful person on my local ROP desk and she says:
* GUPs/PUPs will be retained, but not clear yet if there will be any changes;
* Impact on taxes/surcharges still to be confirmed (will they be included?); and
* TG is still finalising the scope of the changes and ironing out some anomalies
For example, presently Aus/BKK/Europe rtn in J costs 170k (both TG and *A award). Under the new scheme, the same flight will cost 340k for a *A award, but around 450k for a TG award (as Aus/BKK and BKK/Eur will be costed as two separate redemption flights).
It's a bit concerning these changes will have the biggest, unfavourable impact on some of the most loyal flyers... but I'm willing to wait a bit and see what transpires.
You've been drinking far too much of the koolaid big fella. I think this will be the nail in the coffin for ROP. I had been loyal to then for about 10 years but last year switched everything to Virgin Australia and last year accrued about 300,000 points. Blooody glad I didn't throw them all TGs way now!