Originally Posted by
pitz
Altitude is just the AC specific component of Aeroplan. I basically am advocating the cancellation of Altitude altogether so that AC can focus on providing a consistent and high quality customer experience for everyone, based on their paid class of service, instead of being overly fixated on frequent customers.
AC's been degrading the 'benefits' to elites for years, yet load factors are better than ever. There's a pretty good argument to be made that loyalty programs add no value whatsoever, and for what customer goodwill is gained through the loyalty program, may very well be lost on the balance when service to non-elites is sacrificed.
For most people, this is the other way around, where Aeroplan is just a specific component of Altitude.
As it stands already - most people don't care about the Aeroplan miles.
What do people care about? Well reading this thread tells me; upgrade, priority service, lounge access, not waiting on the phone, etc. Well, none of that is part of Aeroplan, all of that is only part of Altitude.
If you're going to create a loyalty program you need to at least pretend to give the people what they want.
Case in point:
Aeroplan miles vs AQM / AQS.
You never hear anyone say they are going on a milage run to get Aeroplan miles. They do it for AQM / AQS. And if you ask them why - they say to get a higher status. What does higher status get you? Higher in the altitude program for all the things that are not part of Aeroplan.
IF (not suggesting just making a point) one of the two were ever to be cut out completely - it would be Aeroplan that gets cut because FF will stay around for Altitude (upgrade, lounge, etc) FF will not stay around to collect Aeroplan miles.