Originally Posted by
tcuhrc
It is, the scale is unmatched and probably unprecedented (and this is kind of something I wish everyone - for or against or neither - would be able to acknowledge). It's so drastic that I don't think there's many complaining or whatever because it's, at best it doesn't improve things but you can still make your existing status/earning in which case might as well continue for now and hope (not without reason) that there's less competition for everything, all the way down to it absolutely guts what you had and you will get more out of another program with even a bit of flexibility.
Originally Posted by
PLeblond
OK. 400+ posts and a few hours digesting and to me this change makes a lot of sense overall.
Like
PLeblond , having slept on this and gotten over the initial shock and disappointment, if I look at this through the lens of what the airline is trying to accomplish, I think by and large they have got it right (with a few things that they might want to tweak either before December 31st or over the next year or two). Here are some of what I think they are "fixing":
- The system rewarded distance flown rather than customer profitability
- The premier credit card rollover was egregiously generous with a compounding effect each year that was making the problem worse and worse
- The current system does nothing to promote an "ecosystem" around Air Canada and its partners - other than the credit card providers
- They probably felt they had too many status flyers overall generating marginal revenue for the company
- Many of the "rewards" were front-end loaded and then the additional rewards were spaced too far apart to create the aspiration to go for the next benefit
- The rewards were far more generous than what was being offered by their domestic (and most international) competitors.
Do I like the changes, no - because it is now much harder for people like us to game the system; but I certainly understand
why they have done what they are doing. If I were designing loyalty/reward system with a clean sheet of paper, it would look a whole lot closer to this than what has been in place up to now. I do expect that with this new reward "platform" it will evolve over time and if they feel a few months in that they have over-corrected, there are all kinds of promotions and soft landings that they can offer their customers.