Air Canada Status Match - Success
 

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What country do you live in? Don't you feel it is deceitful to use an unearned matched status for yet another matched status?

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Thankfully it won't be too hard to figure out who you are based on what you posted here.

+1. AC probably offers a couple hundred matches a year, tracking this down and revoking it will be easy. And I really hope they do so.

People doing crap like this is the reason airlines and hotels are hesitant to offer matches in the first place. And bragging about it certainly won't help convince AC to continue offering it, which hurts those who actually have a real need/reason for such a match.

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Next time just don't reveal too much info.

You are in law school. You study cause and effect on a daily basis. You made a post that pretty much says, "Hey, I got AC to give me status I totally don't deserve for free! And here's how you can too!!!"

What was the effect you expected? A pat on the back? A case of beer from AC Loyalty with a card saying, "Well played chap!"? Did you honestly not see this train wreak coming?

Also: Deleting your FT posts while leaving your blog post about it up = truly brilliant

You'll actually see the blog post modified.

I'm just sad (and annoyed) of how aggressive this community is. I tried to share a tip and my experience. Instead of saying your thanks, you get aggressive. I did not have to share this tip, and you do not have to engage it. There will be folks who will have used the information. It's this type of behaviour, which is sadly prevelent in the FT community, which discourages the sharing of information.

On the moral side, I frankly see nothing wrong with it. If the intent of the program was to discourage such behaviour, it would be extremely easy to do so. Moreover, other behaviours (like some types of MS that go for cash equivalents and is clearly in violation of CC contract) is endorsed in this community.

You need to realize that you may not act on the information, but others certainly will. The goal of this community is information sharing. Unless something crosses a clear ethical line, which it did not in this case, FT members should not be agressive as that behaviour only discourages information sharing, the raison d'etre for this community.

Also note that I knew the risk. I don't actually need AC status (I have TK*G and A3*G), and I rarely fly AC. I did all of this so I could share my experience and help others. I took the posts down , not because I fear any repercussions, but because this type of aggressive behaviour is a huge turn off for my want to share information and help others. You're driving information away from these forums to private groups (ex. Canadian KM's BBM group). What a pity.

My two cents.

I can appreciate your sharing, it was mostly the amount of detail that made no sense to me, as it seems certain to bite you in the rear.

In terms of aggression, this community (AC forum), has watched as key benefits of the program like IKK and upgrade sharing get gutted due to abuse by a limited number of status holders. As a result, we're quite touchy to people who openly advocate abuse (understanding that ethical lines differ between people) as such behavior frequently has bad results for the entire community.

Some people may argue that people taking advantage of status match offers who clearly aren't targetted by the airlines make life much harder for those who do have a genuine interest in shifting business from another airline to AC.

I'm very surprised AC actually matched your status since they're usually very stingy with status matches, and AB Gold customers certainly wouldn't be their target group anyway.

I personally don't particularly care either way, but IMO making such posts will always trigger some negative responses - it's the same with posting fuel durnps, error fares etc. - they may help some, but at the same time opportunities disappear faster.

If this example, and your further revelations about having scammed the system to get STARGold with A3 and TK, you've clearly established how low your ethical standards are. Yes, in this community we share legitimate and ethical ways of maximizing benefits from these programs. However, this is not a community of scammers and you've clearly established your credentials in that respect. Like others, we expect you'll be hearing from AC on Tuesday...

When did I ever say I did anything remotely "wrong" to get tk or a3!? I earned dl gold and status matched to get tk, and I earned a3.

And what do you think the word 'scam' means? Scam requires a purposeful misrepresentation. At no time was there a purposeful misrepresentation. Some status match programs ask for flight history with the competitor, presumably to limit matching from status matches. AC did not do that. I did not tell them I fly the competitor airline a lot, nor did I forge anything. To have done so would have been a scam. What I did was not. How am I to know of AC's intention with the program if they haven't made the rules to communicate that intention? Perhaps they want to drive savvy flyers like myself, in which case the status matched status match makes no difference. Or perhaps they wanted me because of other AC history? Again, I don't know what they want except what is communicated and structured in the rules of the program.

Read before you write.

If you want to get started on the "ethical issues" on FT: we capitalize on the mistakes of others (which, btw, the common law says we have a duty not to do); we abuse a credit system in a way that is clearly not intended, etc. It's interesting to tolerate these things, which benefit you, but to name something that doesn't specifically benefit you as immoral.

I don't think AC status matches are that uncommon lately. This past year AC offered status matches to TAM and US Airways elite members after those carriers left Star Alliance.

Indeed, it's not uncommon for AC to offer status matches for FFers of airlines that are in the process of leaving *A (AC also had an offer for BD status members), but IME AC is rather stingy when it comes to offering status matches to anyone else.