Originally Posted by
Wallace Cashperson
I am not sure if the vouchers are harder to use, and I am not sure if they are usable on partner airlines? But that is definitely going to cover all my annual award traveling. A SE can take their husband/wife on one annual trip and their top bro on another every year, that is pretty sweet. Or a family of 5 at 50% off anywhere.
Supposedly they are usable on partner airlines, so this is indeed attractive if you can find a partner redemption... especially on carriers like LH that have decent availability but had very high YQ. If you are looking to do a couple of rounds trips with significant other and can either plan ahead or at the last minute, this will indeed be attractive to get redeptions to say Europe in J for 70,000 points in J with no YQ.
Originally Posted by
yowcat
Today you get without waiting for your spend 10 bookings you can make anywhere in the network at fixed pricing that is equivalent to the 50% off if not better. You can take up to eight people on each of those bookings. You could make them any time up to almost just before the flight closed.
I get that you now get access to more seats; however, at much larger pricing and your fighting everyone who has an account now.
I think there are pluses and minuses depending on how you have used IKK in the past. If you made wide use of IKK, this is overall likely a big net negative for you. If you only used it a few times a year, then the new system is likely better - IKK still was significantly limited especially for international J. Now all will be available and even if the redemption is at the high end of the range AC quotes, after the 50% discount it is fairly competitive with what we "pay" now.