Originally Posted by Nightowl888

I’m doubtful this in itself will ease overcrowding. Even at the current prices a first year membership is $949, which seems like it would be difficult for the average Joe to justify, but clearly people are still buying it up anyway (presumably as a tax deductible business expense and/or with cc discount).

I don’t need to say twice that Brook Sabin’s comments about how you get “$200-$240” value from a return flight being a Koru member is ridiculous. I’d think for many it would be $40-50 tops for each return trip (even less so if not flying around meal times), so to get your $949 worth you’d need ~20 return trips. But that would mean you’d likely get to G or E anyway, by which point Koru would obviously be worthless.

Hopefully though there is a gradual easing of the overcrowding, when paired with the govt changes and no more status extensions/status points boosts/top ups.

I deal with govt travel policies across a wide range of public sector entities. Govt travel has been significantly slashed, especially in PE/J, not just for cost savings but also for CO2 emission reductions as part of the Net Zero 2050 goal. Plenty of people I know in govt that were G or E will barely make S now.

So hopefully we slowly see a bit less chaos in the lounges going forward!