"Industry Impact Award

"Randy calls Air Canada Aeroplan to the podium to pick up an Industry Impact Award. In 2003, Aeroplan introduced personalized elite-level benefits, allowing members to select from several "Experience" benefits packages. Randy makes no secret that he thinks this is a groundbreaking achievement, and openly calls on other programs to follow Aeroplan's lead."

Quite honestly, this may be the least deserved honor of the day. If this is the direction other programs are going, then watch out. On the surface this looks like a positive innovation, but actually it is retrograde and quite discriminatory. Some of the better options were available only to those cohabiting, since they involve spouse benefits and hefty status miles bonuses. Also not mentioned, is the fact AC made upgrading more costly on NAmerican routes, and reduced the number of SWUs one can earn at threshold levels.

True, some of the choices worked better for some than others, but the overall selection sucked, and making selections in a timely fashion was not evident among many FTers who could not get access to their enrollment forms until February!

Make sure this program "improvement" does not spread!