Originally Posted by
Joeyjo
I think it’s important to be very clear that while the high net revenue customers are likely “happier” than the low net revenue customers in the new program it’s clearly a much worse program even for them than the old one. **Maybe** the benefit of fewer people using high status / J perks makes the experience nicer, but I’m skeptical.
I spent a number of years doing short-haul flights for basically no status while spending a bunch of money. So I’m fundamentally in favour of this type of approach. But AC has done two things here: 1. Switch to a much more revenue focused program. 2. Made the program much worse.
For our family, and we are very likely to be part of a very small minority, the new program is better.
As of today, my wife and I both have 170 eUps and 8 PRs which will all expire worthless. We were each able to gift 50K to 2 of the 6 other members in our family pool. We have never used status passes or lounge passes. We have given them away before, and will do so again this year but selfishly, I would prefer to have things that we can use rather than things that are useless to us, some of which we can give away.
If, as we expect to, we reach 130,000 SQCs in 2026, we will both be able to gift 25K, 35K and 50K status to members of our family pool. We will each also be able to collect an additional 12,500 SQCs as well as 5,000 AP points and $300 in AC gift cards. We will both collect 80 eUps through MBs which we would only use if the number of SE eUp nominees increases from 1 to 2. I don't expect that to happen but we need to see what the 2026 core benefits look like.
I am sure that our use case is very rare but for our family, the new regime is much better.
Our travel is very predictable and constant. Our steady state will be 13,000 head start SQCs, 12,500 MB SQCs, 25,000 Amex SQCs and 80,0000 AC flight SQCs (which is equivalent to 20,000 SQD in the current regime). The rest of our family pool has less predictable travel with most of it being domestic reward travel and some international paid travel.
There are a few things that I think are not right like the 1 head start SQC per 5 rollover SQMs in the transition year, the lack of a 5 multiplier on J fares given the 0 and 2 earn rate on some AC spend, the SQC earn rate on *A flights on something like LHR-FRA-NRO-FRA-LHR in J when I cannot book YYJ-LHR-NRO-FRA-YYJ on -014 stock. The partner awards for Marriott stays are horrible but I can control where my spend goes (i.e. Bonvoy over AC/AP) so I am not that fussed.
I completely understand why so many people are sad, upset, angry or furious. I would be too if I were in their position, especially the MM cohort, the MM or higher level MM aspirants, those with a lot more rollover SQM than we have and those with years of banked SE, especially those who are nearing the end of their travel days.