Originally Posted by
VE105
I talked with some representatives from Membership & Loyalty at a Diamond event last month, I think from time to time they have some internal discussion but personally I strongly oppose the idea of creating lifetime DM. This lifetime thing will only induce a bunch of snobbish over-the-hill ex-loyal customers who now wouldn't fly with CX regularly but still yearn for all the frequent flyer benefits. Unless a lifetime member can introduce his offspring to the world of Cathay and help to "create" a future DM, I see no benefits from the airline's side to grant people this status.
Originally Posted by
VE105
Exactly! If one is going to spend a large bunch of money on CX every year, he wouldn't need lifetime status, and if one is not going to spend much on CX in the coming future, he does not deserve all the DM/OWE benefits.
I understand the spirit (and what Percy is saying too), but I think the take is a bit harsh and one sided.If this thread proves anything, and what I think the naysayers overlook, it is that value can be created by dangling a benefit in front of people
to be earned. The posts above make quite clear travelers will steer money a certain direction - in this case, to the BA ecosystem somehow - if they see a prize at the end. Okay, so it needn't be as "easy" to earn as BAs thing. Certainly there is a way to design it so CX could extract benefits for themselves.
For example: CX has, whether by accident or design, finally stumbled upon the fact that it's clever to hold back award inventory for its own program and even give special inventory to GOs and DMs, instead of dumping award inventory to American Airlines and Alaska. Guess what? You see the mileage bloggers now dutifully flogging the benefits of MPC whereas before it was deemed a mostly worthless program for those types. There is something of a zero sum game between airlines and their mileage programs - "better"/larger programs tend to earn at the expense of those like MPC. Yet CX has a product that is aspirational for many fliers native to other programs and thus there is (has been for a long time) untapped bargaining power that CX has been either too inept or unwilling to fully tap into. Now, those changes seem to be slowly happening. One such benefit to dangle, could be lifetime OWE.
I'm not saying it's going to happen or should, just I can definitely see how lifetime *could* make sense: as another way to try and increase value at CPLP.
Of course there is a cost to lifetime OWE. Undeniable. A benefit for us is a cost for CX. This can also, of course be quantified so it's just a math problem, not some bogeyman that is all mysterious and frightening. Maybe the math could even work out! (Or maybe not). I will add, with some amusement that I'm not sure who the typical DM is, but I don't see myself suddenly quitting my 16 years of spending on CX mostly in premium cabins, to switch it up to fly Y so I can mooch off my lifetime OWE benefits, were I to get such a thing!
The year by year thing is indeed challenging. It does just feel a little weird if you got booted out after a light year in say 20-25 years as a DM. After all, many of us in this forum are far more "CX" than current executives at CX themselves! I see people upthread talking about 18, 19 year consecutive Diamonds. How many travelers are there like that out there?