Originally Posted by
Alec84
Slightly off-topic, but does SK really have an enormous ”shortage” of elite status members? During the last few years they have offered several matches, match all equivalent Scandic members, have offered double status points and other lucrative deals through the Xmas calendar and similar promotions. In addition to all this they have a steady stream of lifetime EBG and EBD ”arriving” each year.
The matchings aside, one should know that they have reduced the number of tier points earned from flying (the gold+ TP bonus of 25% was removed), more or less increasing the thresholds by 25% for Gold and Diamond. They also decreased the TP earnings from credit cards.
I don't know which was the chicken and wich was the egg, but diversifying how tier points can be earned is a now a part of the status-equation. So flying + rental car + hotels + Tier-points campaigns is the structure and promos like christmas calendar should not be seen as a drive to get more status members.
Cooperation and matching status with Scandic should be seen in the light of Strawberry downfall in the loyalty market after teaming up with Norwegian and spenn.
From a FT'ers point of view matching other airlines though is not very productive for the program, but airline tend to do it now and then and apparently they see a benefit from it. Finnair has also matched SAS not that long ago.
One should also know that SAS have started to talk publicly about the previously 'secret, invite-only' super-tier (Pandion). One can always speculate that they are filling the ranks preparing for a tier devaluation. Gold could become the new Silver and Diamond could become the new Gold if they go public with Pandion. Devaluing statuses could also be in preperation for syncing EB statuses with FB status structure.
So a match is always yummy for FT'ers but perhaps not that exceptionally valuable in the long term.