Originally Posted by
sehgalanuj
I know the community generally dislikes the rollover restrictions, and perhaps some Ultis are unhappy about not being able to get to PFL after a few years, but I think you did the thing by tightening the requirements.
I agree with you that ongoing flying is important as well, since your costs are continuous and temporary spikes look great when they happen but a business generally needs more predictable revenue, costs and cash flow. So it makes a lot of sense.
Its another reason why I think your thresholds for Gold and Platinum are low. That's where you should focus, rather than try to slide in a qualification increase in the guise of fare differentiation. Change in XP will also impact Ulti, which I imagine won't hurt FB either (though selfishly might be something I don't enjoy).
We all kind of moved on to the PFL topic a lot more, and while it's interesting, the thread was a out the 0XP and differentiated XP. There are some good thoughts in this thread about those too.
I realize you're actively surveying, and so this is a pending decision. That makes it hard to talk about. Would it be possible to still get some more of your thighs on the topic though?
You can ignore most of the odd specificities of the survey. For example there will never be any scenario where AF earns XP and KL doesn't. The intro of 0 XP long haul J fares also seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea and would undoubtedly receive extreme resistance both internally and externally. (I wasn't involved in this survey, but to me it's just trying to calibrate customer reaction to a variety of different factors, all else being equal.)
But my point stands regarding the principle of differentiating XP per fare brand, and finding ways to encourage our elite members to still find a reason/value in buying up from the lowest fare offered. Put simply - basic Y fares in Europe are meant to offer a product that competes with FR, U2, etc. The 0 XP is essentially us saying to our elite members, We don't want you buying this, but we won't 'punish' you if you do so (by preventing elite benefits from applying to this fare - like you see with some of our legacy competitors). Because of course, that's the other possibility: we can simply say, fine, you earn XP on these cheap Basic fares, but elite benefits don't apply. (This is more of the model you see from US carriers. )