f4free

I talked to a friend who is TCQG yesterday regarding the free status prolongation for 2003. He had been e-mailing back and forth with Travelclub and Circle-Management on the following issue:

After Swissair's grounding last year, and Swissair continuing to fly with a limited network, Qualiflyer gave a free prolongation of status to everybody for 2002, regardless of flown miles.
Now, with the termination of the Qualiflyer program, everybody's status is prolonged for free once more, regardless of mileage flown.

My friend, who has been TCQG ever since this level was introduced, wrote to Travelclub management expressing his vivid concern, that now not once but twice those not using Swiss anymore (or as much as before) where given free status. On the other hand, those that flew all those miles in order to requalify had to find out at the end of the year that their status would have been free anyway, and all of this flying could have gone into top tier status with another airline. My friend asked for some type of compensation - I'm not aware what he exactly asked for. The answer was: There's no compensation what so ever for those that would have earned the status. Due to "certain circumstances" old Swissair awarded 2002 status because many, so told, weren't able to earn it because of the grounding. And this time, it is for the technical reason of switching to a new program.

Allt his makes sense, but nevertheless, I find it outrageous that folks like myself or my friend here, having earned the status the hard way by flying with Swissair even after the grounding, and starting to use Swiss right from the start, are now punished for their loyalty. No compensation what so ever? I am furious. I's fine to give status to formally loyal customers that will probably return. But it's not right to cheat me out of my CO Platinum, AA Exec Platinum or whatever status I would have earned not using Swiss.

How do you feel about this? Does anybody else feel cheated?

I would wish that Swiss would either award us Circle status, or add on two years after status expires. Or maybe give something like 20'000 loyalty miles. But there needs to be something. It's just not right.

(Edited for clearness.)

[This message has been edited by ch_usa (edited 12-20-2002).]