Originally Posted by sehgalanuj

You're still sort of demonstrating my point that each FFP is designed by the airline for what suits it's own goals. Comparing Ulti to Diamond might seem comparable, but the two programs aren't directly comparable anyway. Upgrades at gate in the US are somewhat expected for ages. Not so much in Europe, though Ultis do get these more often at the gate or on board. Delta has credit cards that can be used to meet their spend requirements. AFKL don't have spend requirements. Different markets, different customers, different strokes.

The programs are just different, for different markets. Living in the US and using FB as your primary program is likely to not so you any favors unless you travel transatlantic a lot. You'd be stuck with low XPs for transcontinental flights.

Every airline decides what they value with their programs, just as we choose where we credit and earn status based on what suits our travel patterns.

In any case this is start to diverge from the topic of the thread. Towards that, yes, I fully agree that Plat needs to be differentiated more from Gold. Choice benefits would make a lot of sense, as would, in my opinion, the adjustment of lounge guests, re-evaluation of Skyteam Elite status and so on would make sense. Plat needs to be elevated for sure. But I can also see logic in AFKL restricting choice benefits or more, based on UXP so that they don't hand these out to someone who flies 90% MU, for example, because then the revenue to reward ratio just wouldn't make sense. This sort of restriction would also cause PFLs to contribute UXPs.

Until then, personally, whether I'm Plat or Ulti, I can't see anything to complain about that Ultis get more than Plat. At the moment the gap isn't that big anyway. But even if it was, the spend gap is big enough to justify it. AFKL are primarily a business.