Originally Posted by
steveholt
I'm not sure how to quantify the scale of points earning being cut between AC and the other airlines.
"The problem is that what [airline] is doing doesn't make a lot of sense or at least seems poorly thought out" came up over and over again in the DL threads last year and the BA threads this year, almost word for word, over and over again. I agree with you, but that conundrum, too, is nothing new.
Re your latter comment, fair enough.
The former: scale of being cut is hard to quantify, yes, but we can compare actual earning rates (mentioned upthread): AC maxes out at 6 points/CAD, which is higher than all of AF/KL, IAG, LH Group (but not AY) - dishonourable mention to EI here - but lower than the US majors. So for SEs, the points earning is not terrible, but the dropoff is huge once you go down: 50K at 4 points/CAD is lower than BA Silver at 8 Avios/GBP or Flying Blue Gold at 7 Miles/EUR, and then non-status get 1 point/CAD, which is practically in a league of its own.
On top of that, AC currently offers 100% or more of distance on Flex fares or higher; Flex fares are generally not a lot more expensive than the lowest fares you can find. This wasn't the case for BA before they switched (the US3 switched years ago, so it was the case back then). One can make the case that this is just AC catching up, but it's still a huge cut all in one go, and more severe even cumulatively than the rest. It's actively incentivizing non-status or even low-status pax to post their AC flights to other programs.
Originally Posted by
kubees
This is precisely why Air Canada stood up the Signature Suite/Signature Class.
Beyond the fact that the SS will continue to be full like it is now because none of this precludes anyone from buying paid J (at the prices it is currently available at, no less), it doesn't make AC J a highly competitive product for long-haul flights (which I assume you know is when the SS can actually be accessed).