As someone who has struggled on multiple occasions getting anyone at BAEC to even respond to my issues, let alone look into them, I view this as very welcome news. Perhaps the EC is actually going to start focusing on customer service for those of us below Gold status. That would be welcome, indeed.

If you ask folks over in the Starwood forum, where the legendary Starwood Lurker regularly posts and helps FT members, this can be a great thing. Does it mean that the EC brass may be a little more plugged into the angles we come up with? Perhaps, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything will change that would not have otherwise.

In my view, the benefit of having a helpful and responsive point of contact here will far outweigh the risks of losing some loophole or mileage maximization strategy that the EC hadn't contemplated.