Originally Posted by
blackball
I was fairly lukewarm about all this at first, but now that all the details have emerged, I am infuriated. A3 is getting rid of everything we love about it. Calling it now: The Gold (re-)qualification threshold will be increased in the not-so-distant future.
In my email to them, I will include a statement like "I know that..." and include all the details in the generic email. Let's see if they answer me with the same thing.
So I emailed A3, and included 'I understand that....' and points from f their standard response in my email, and stated that most carriers offered their top tier members access to free premium seating, and I expected this from A3. I received the following in reply:
"We would like to note that, by launching this new service, our goal is to facilitate our members and passengers and offer them the choice of preselecting the desired seat. This kind of service is offered by many International Air Carriers already and we do follow this example, hoping to provide extended care and a completely new level of information and control of our regular customers’ journey. n the Miles + Bonus program, at the moment, the top tier is Gold. However, considering the course and development of the Program so far and of course with your support, we believe that in the future we will be able to offer more and more opportunities matching your expectations and growing needs of our individual members like you."
So maybe a new top tier is coming which will then get access to these seats for free? I guess devaluing gold and adding platinum or similar would avoid putting up the qualification thresholds if they feel they have too many gold members. But I am not sure if I would be motivated to achieve a new top tier (most of my *A miles are going into Asiana as the moment as I am mid way to lifetime status).
As others have said, I think one of the worst things about *A is the lack of premium seating benefits for gold alliance-wide. The others are the basing of codeshare earning on the operating carrier's codes, and the the growing number if *A carriers using their own non *A LCC for connecting/regional flights.