Originally Posted by
Adam Smith
You misunderstand the purpose of a frequent flyer program. It's not to shower benefits on people who fly often, it's to incentivize behaviour that's profitable to the airline. The people who buy the cheapest possible tickets, especially Basic, may generate little to no profit for AC, and have also demonstrated themselves to be incredibly price-sensitive. AC thus chooses not to reward this behaviour.
I didn't make any judgement there, just speculated about whether the credit card users -- at least the ones seen frequently in the lounge -- are actually new or just the same people that the lounges previously accommodated before the rules changes.
(But as an aside if AC doesn't want people buying Basic fares they have an easy option.... stop selling them)
Edit: Ah. I think I see how my comment may have been unclear. When I said "The only problem with that" I didn't mean I had a problem with AC's practices (in this moment). I meant the only problem with my logic above about non-status travellers being non-frequent travellers and therefore not taking up lounge seats is that there exist non-status travellers who do fly frequently but on Basic/Standard fares. If those people sign up for credit cards they may well appear in lounges frequently even though they're non-status.