Originally Posted by
mapleg
He must be thinking of FT when he say this:
You shouldn’t need a Ph.D. to be able to enjoy rewards. While incredibly complex programs might benefit a very small number of particularly highly engaged customers, we don’t feel that’s the right decision for the broader community.
He ignores the fact these "highly engaged customers" spend a lot of money with AC.
He's absolutely wrong here! If anybody can redeem points for airline seats then they'll be no seats left for us elites. The last thing any SE wants is a kettle sitting beside them in Long haul J bragging how they got the seat for 50,000 Aeropesos and mailing in 6 specially marked packets of Highliner!
In fact it's obscure rules like the 2 free stopovers if you call Aeroplan are the type of things only members of FT will know! You should need to be a regular on FT, have an active subscription to EF and spend hours optimizing the routing and minimizing the scamcharges to use the program beyond simple merchandise redemptions!
If by simplicity it means removing these loopholes, Air Canada loyalty fees (I.e. scamcharges) and raising the number of points needed per redemption then count me out!
Safe Travels,
James