Shareholder

The FINANCIAL POST has a full page piece by Diane Francis about Robert Lawrie and his battle with uncle Milton which has led to this 1.9 million miler being expelled from the elite levels of Aeroplan. (The next page has a news story about uncle Milton being rewarded with a $1.35 million pay check and stock options worth another $4 million for fending off Onex!) The article is somewhat muddled and I still don't know what this man's sins were (misusing points and upgrades seems to be the gist of it, then insulting the CEO himself). All I know is that 1.9 million miles does not equal $350K in lost value to Mr. Lawrie as the article, and his letters to AC claim. (At best, I get $120K for 24 J-class reward tickets across the Atlantic at about $5K a shot.)

Makes for interesting reading, but I have to wonder if the fellow feels so badly done by and abused by AC, why doesn't he take his business to another carrier. Out of Toronto there are at least two others to London (BA and CP), and he could get better deals on AF, SW or LH using their hubs.

In any case, suppose we should watch out what we write on these fora or we may get little notations on our Aeroplan files too.

AC*SE

There are a few other people whose conduct probably deserves something like this.

I figure that when an airline invites someone with that much flying to take his business elsewhere, the person must be something more than just a pain.

Randy Petersen

Yes, a very interesting story. If any of you would like to see what this is all about, and I highly recommend it, please click to: http://www.nationalpost.com/financia...=000401/248152

cslusarc

I was shocked when I read that article. I then began to wonder what Mr. Lawrie really did that required such drastic action.
I wonder how someone could misuse upgrades other than by exchanging them or selling them to others.
Secondly, what could warrant similar actions?
I'm thinking that this could include selling frequent flyer rewards to others. I don't think that this was Mr. Lawrie's situation because he had almost 2 million aeorplan points.

Fisch

I wonder what sort of notations are on my file after that somewhat strongly worded letter I sent to Mr. Milton's office regarding the upgrade issue?

SMessier

Thanks for the link - it was quite an interesting article. Clearly, there has to be more to this story than is being reported. Given the amount of business involved, it seems hard to believe that inappropriate upgrades are behind AC's decision. (Or having Mr. Lawrie tell Milton he is the more popular of the two...).

Hopefully we will learn more soon...

[This message has been edited by SMessier (edited 04-01-2000).]

jamiel

slightly omni, but didn't Herb Keleher at Southwest say that there are some customers which he will just say "go elsewhere" to....

jl

Dorian

Very strange indeed. If that is all that happened I would imagine AC could be sued....unless there is more to the story.

Dorian

Dorian

Shareholder....

I think you could get to a higher value if you took a destination on another *A carrier in 1st....

Dorian

ALW

Shareholder, he's probably using 2 cents a point to calculate that value. 3 cents (Canadian) is what they charge to top-up, and of course it depends what you _would_ have paid for the ticket.

I used to send Patti to Toronto for 15k points when she was going mid-week for only two or three days, or needed flexibility; when I started doing that the ticket was worth ~$450 total, by now it's about $600. At that rate I'd be getting (i.e. saving) 4 cents a point. Converely, I wouldn't spend 15k when a $129 (now $149?) revenue ticket would do the job.

And I'm sure you meant you "would" get $5k a pop if you were the type to do that.

andrew

megamiles

Even at 3 cents per mile, the value is only Canadian $60,000 . Even for business class the value doesn't exceed the $120K that Shareholder calculated. $350K is very exaggerated.

ALW

You're right, it's more like 20 cents a mile (a minor slip on my part, guess I was expecting 2 cents so that's where I placed the decimal!).

andrew

BlondeBomber

The best I can do (or worst depending on your point of view) is about $405,000 for undiscounted economy class round trips in North America (of course it presumes you are flying Whitehorse to Miami 76 times !)

76X25000 = 19000000 miles

I know it is not a good comparison but it shows the maximum potential.

I am sure the guy doesn't typically fly in econo and does not fly from Whitehorse to Miami. It does however show what the range of value that one can place on rewards(about $30000 for 1.9 million miles at the low end if you compare the cheapest discount most stupid use of miles to the most judicious use, ie Whitehorse to Miami--which would be a good deal in winter!)

MD

The $350K is exaggerated. Shareholder, in his ititial post, had the best valuation of the tickets at about 120K. What I want to know is how 80 trips across the pond in a single year could be justified in his or anybodies mind. That is more than once per week! I could conceive of 40-50 or so (weekly meetings) but that is about it.

Could it be that Air Canada was seeing him as a very large liability due to his huge point balance?

All in all a interesting topic. I would be very interested to hear more details of his sins that would cause AC to take such drastic action. I can not believe the reason Mr. Lawrie proposes.

Max Power

The cause of the problem is revealed in the second paragraph of the story, where it notes that his occupation is a "lawyer".

Says it all, no further comment needed.