Originally Posted by
farnorthtrader
It is clear that they are valuing high margin customers over volume customers. In your case, you are spending more than 40 cents per SQM and have card volume very close to the caps they have chosen for the cards, so they maybe lose 35,000 in card spend from you. In our case, we are spending a little under 20 cents per SQM (break even this year to next is 25 cents) and have card spend more than $300,000 over the new cap that is now in jeopardy of being moved elsewhere.
Having said that, I am not sure you are as much better off as you seem to think. Yes, in terms of SQC versus SQM, you are marginally better off, however, in terms of the benefits that you will receive for your SQC versus what you would have received for your SQM, I believe you will find that your benefit is considerably worse, rather than marginally better. So for a member that would appear to be pretty much their target market, they are likely still reducing the incentive to fly with them.
There are four things that matter to me : Maintaining Zone 1 on the Q400, Concierge, AP points for our family sharing pool and status gifting. eUps are of no use to our family although that would change if the Core Benefit went from 1 to 2 eUp nominees per SE. I know that it is not likely but they did recently double the number of upgradeable pax on a single PNR so there is a small chance. I gift status passes and lounge access. I don't want to get into the business of actually booking my family's reward trips and want them to do it themselves out of the pool so our PRs go to waste too.
My wife and I each have our own Aeroplan AmEx cards with zero fee supplementary cards on each other's card to help us optimise the outcome of our card spend. You are right, our household credit card spend over $250,000 is now going elsewhere. It will take some planning to ensure that 100% of our AC spending goes on our Aeroplan AmEx cards.
Zone 1 on the Q400 for roughly half my legs definitely makes me a more sticky customer than I would be if I was based out of YVR, YYZ or YUL.
Originally Posted by
Stranger
We are in a fairly similar situation. As far as renewing status etc., not very different from last year.
However you are missing two points.
The first is about gaining MM status or moving to the next. Admittedly might not matter to you. Will take me an extra year, not that bad. But for younger people hoping to reach this, and who fly latitude/ PY/ J, a big negative. Also, "benefits" for people with status from MM but who no longer fly much essentially disappeared (due to point No. 2 below).
The second might have implications for you: "benefits" no longer come up upfront, and possibly significantly reduced. (I did not carefully check the latter point.)
MM is out of the question for us. We have lived and worked in 3 countries with 2 employers and a lot of different travel policies so we have never had the time to build up a lot of miles with any single carrier. I do understand that the new MB regime means that status endures for MM customers and on banked SE years but that benefits now have to be earned annually and that LQMs are harder to earn than they were before for premium fares. I would be very disappointed by the change in the rules if I was in, or aspired to be in, either group.
The new MB regime means more to track and requires a bit more effort but actually gives us more of what we want (SQCs, AP points, status gifting) and less of what we don't use (eUps, PRs, lounge access, status passes) so overall, I prefer the new benefits scheme. My wife and I each currently have 170 unused eUps and 8 PRs. I suspect that I am in a minority position here.