Originally Posted by
SparseFlyer
This is because AC is not interested in customers that reach the status because they find it good value.
They want to give SE perks to customers who happen to fly a lot on AC at premium fares. To motivate them to stay with AC (eg "well I have top tier with AC, might as well continue to fly with them").
Not to acquire flyers that will min-max their spending to extract value out of the program.
From that perspective, it becomes clear that announcing the 2017 benefits is irrelevant for them and their target audience.
Someone somewhere must be sitting on a spreadsheet they're confident in, that says doing this will save them more in reduced benefits paid out than they'll lose from people who reduce their AC spend because of this.
We'll see where the rest of the program falls, from this I don't see a single dollar in new revenue for AC, only cut costs.
I mean, what percentage of 35Ks were getting to 35,000 AQM or 35 segments on less than $114/leg? Even Rapidair Y commuters have a hard time getting that low.
...so, yeah, this looks like a way to turn a ton of SEs into 75ks.