SPC1759

My EI Platinum status ends in early March and my Tier credits will reset to zero. I expect to drop back to Silver.

I have some trips in late March and will earn new credits for those flights - but they’ll promptly be lost on 1 April…

Will the count-back provision mean that the lost credits can still count toward rebuilding my Tier status after 1 April?

Oshkosh105

Will end March at 272.5 including last year's tier points. I'm hoping I'm in the same boat as BristolFlyer as I do have a booked Business return in May linked to my account that I was banking on putting me over the threshold, but not sure what the goodwill policy/how close you have to be will be to get the upgrade when things switch in April.

Otherwise, potential TC run it is

FlightDetective

Yes, all your flights 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 will count for your status from 1 April 2024.

Therefore, if you drop to Silver in March on your anniversary date, but on the recalculation you earned enough Tier Credits for Platinum based on 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 flying, you would then be upgraded to Platinum again, if you have enough Tier Credits.

FlightDetective

If you end March at 272.5 based on the 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 period, then you will be in the same boat as BristolFlyer and will be awarded Silver status.

By the skin of your teeth!

gjc31

I have mixed feelings about this. Current TP year starts October. Currently silver with 150 points accrued for this year. If they do the look back thing then I would have over 460 points which would put me within sniffing distance of Platinum but there’s no way I can realistically achieve the flights needed to get 150 points in the next month 🫤. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding this? If I *were* to manage 150 pts before end of March, would I achieve platinum?

SPC1759

Many thanks for your help with this. Unfortunately I won’t have enough credits to regain Platinum until I’ve earned (a lot) more credits after 1 April. My concern is that the 100 credits I’ll earn in late March (and lose on 1 April) will no longer help me get back to Platinum after 1 April. If so, it would leave me 100 credits behind where I’d otherwise be, so I’d be disadvantaged.

For example, if I earn 550 points between say April and October 2024, will I still be short of Platinum even though I’d earned 650 points if including the lost points earned in March 2024? Without this change, I’d regain Platinum sooner.

Pete_23567

You're understanding correctly - if you were to collect 150 TCs then you would get bumped up. I need 224 to keep concierge into 2026 but having had a look this morning I don't think its viable...

FlightDetective

You are correct, using that example. Those 100 credits will be assigned to the 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 year and will expire on 1 April 2024 (or 10 April as they seem to have a switchover delay this year). So yes, without the change, you would have regained Platinum sooner - using your example.

SPC1759

Thanks again. Oh well, so much for the ‘nobody will be disadvantaged’ principle!

blagger

A sudden change which effectively wipes out earned TPs without notice for some seems unnecessary. The similar BA change seems better planned, using April 2024 to 2025 year instead of EI's retrospective April 2023 to 2024 year: for BA the current in-progress TP year remains the same and overlaps with a new April 24 to April 25 TP year, and you can qualify for either, and know in advance what's happening

Teplane

I think I agree with you both. This is actually a pretty lousy way to treat loyal customers. Extending status by a few months is superficially ‘customer friendly’, but when you think on it just a bit, it really knocks for six people who’ve engaged with the programme in good faith. The people who gain most are those who would have lost status annyway and many people who are gunning to achieve or retain status will be kicked to the kerb.

Concierge customers are just plain worse off. They’re supposed for get 4 upgrades every year, but with this change they’ll only get 4 upgrades in 18 months in this cycle (in my case) or even longer for customers with anniversary’s dates earlier in the year. And they’ll get less for exactly the same amount of flying, as we got no notice of the change

I don’t think they’re being underhand deliberately, as I genuinely think they were trying to do right by customers while keeping thing simple, but they just haven’t thought this through properly. BA’s more complicated approach is ultimately more customer friendly and respectful of their customers.

poor show by EI on this one. I really hope they’ll reconsider and allow people to qualify based on either the new status year or the existing status year.

SPC1759

I agree. It’s a nonsensical and deeply unfair ambush. Surely it should be possible to take account of points earned before 1 April if they would have led to a Tier benefit after 1 April, if retained.

gjc31

What we all need is a double TP promotion RIGHT NOW!! Someone pull some strings!

thelonglane

My take is that they are absolutely punishing high earning flyers whose anniversary is later in the year . I would have requalified for concierge by the end of April based on the old system and that loyalty looks like it’s being wiped out . In theory someone who has a concierge twist date in earlier months of the new cycle could have status now until April 2026 and probably have had a chance to use their existing vouchers and they additionally get another set.
In theory those particular flyers could redirect spend towards gaining status on a different FF programme for nearly a year with no effect.
If they had given proper notice, I could have directed flights strategically in a much better way and still retained the tier status as I have nearly 1800TPs going from Apr 23 to 24

FlightDetective

The thing is, they have tried to be fair in this regard by extending everyone's status to 31 March 2025 (which for some will be quite a number of months extension) and compensated for the loss by doing the retrospective calculation from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. I think what people are missing is that they could well have turned around and done the opposite - just cut back people's year to 31 March 2024, and then based the new status on the retrospective calculation, for better or for worse. Instead, they have gone the customer centric route, extending status and also making the Tier Credits earned prior to 31 March 2024 valuable.

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Yes, I can see how it would impact people who use the programme forensically to gain the fullest advantage. It's how I work my BA account, very strategically. With the BA changes, I am very ambivalent about it, only because this is a zero year for me. I would have been quite irritated had I been part way through earning to status, so I can totally understand where you're coming from there.

Aer Lingus value their Concierge customers greatly, so the intent certainly would not be to put anyone's nose out of joint and for the vast majority of people, the changes will be beneficial. However, as has been pointed out, there will be cases where things are not so cut and dried.