why fly

however if you buy J fares you dont need SE

YOWgary

Same reason YVR-HKG often costs more than SEA-YVR-HKG.

AC would love nothing better than to increase their share of long-haul, ex-US traffic, and have consistently shown they're willing to offer a variety of goodies to US customers in pursuit of this goal.

why fly

Again AC didn't think before they came up with new rules.

Far Siren

This is very short sighted and simplistic thinking. Of course I could hit the AQD with my expected 2016 travel in a mixture of discounted J and Y+. But why play this game any longer when the criteria seem to change every November without much rhyme or reason?

My decision to switch fully over to BA had nothing to do with whether I could hit the AQD, and everything to do with not wanting to give my business to an operation that I, in my totally personal and objective evaluation, deem as erratic, unreliable and not dependable.

canadiancow

I disagree with the title of this thread.

I live outside the US, and was quite happy with the requirements.

Now there will still be a bunch of bottom feeding SEs here

CloudsBelow

Likely more to do with the exSEA PAX having a tough time booking AC for all domestic itins.

AC's change is no different from the USA airline min spend requirements for Canadians.

puslinch

or 5k GBP....

canadiancow

I'm so glad everyone thinks they knew me so well

I'm very disappointed with this. When AQD was first announced, I was upset that there was no reduced requirement for non-residents, because there had been a reduced requirement for AC metal.

But I easily hit the full requirement for AC metal, and I'll easily hit the full requirement for AQD.

So all this does is leave more bottom feeders with status. Which reduces the chance of benefits improving.

Uh, it's pretty easy to buy AC business class at well under 20cpm. So no, you wouldn't necessarily have "no problems".

YYZFlyboy

This latest re-think with the reduced AQD requirement for non-Canadians really shows that AC is basically just flying by the seat of their pants and have no clue what their doing. (Remember when the introduced AC metal requirements - they later came back and changed that for non-Canadians then too).

Have they just hired some marketing or finance students right out of college to lead this stuff? How do they think this stuff up and why? Far Siren said it well upstream: "Aeroplan/Altitude has become too unreliable, erratic and not dependable."

It's not just small tweaks, it's major "enhancements" (read: downgrades)year after year, then adjustments to the original change mid-year, then notifications about more adjustments on the next qualifying year, when does it all stop. It's like playing soccer with hockey goal posts - and they move the goal posts constantly, just to make it even harder to score.

Unbelievably amateur.

CloudsBelow

Yeah, Good thing BA never guts their FFP. Only tweaks to benefit PAX over at British Airways.
Oh, wait ...
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...d-devaluation/

24left

Well, let's be gracious and generous and say......who knows

Sometimes the planets align the wrong way at the right time. Or maybe it’s the weather.

So we have crashing oil (for a while) - which matters in this country and I’m not an economist or in finance.
We have a dollar worth .6902 (give or take)

And this morning we have AC announcing that non-Canadian residents are now only required to meet 50% of the dollar spend.

Is there a reason AC did not do the math before they launched the 2016 program? Or to be gracious, is there a reason it was not included in the original program launch? It's not a new concept.

I wonder if the company is not just seeing a drop in bookings from non-residents, who as noted, would have challenges with AC getting them to all of their destinations, given were they live.

I wonder if, on some routes (e.g. TB), AC has noticed an increase in bookings from UA. Numbers may be small, but if both Canadian and U.S. residents (and even international) have discovered that they can book on UA, save money, avoid some charges and earn more in the MP program, why would they stay with AC etc.


(and before any of you decide to pick apart my opinion, it's my opinion - and a question which others have and will certainly not get answered publicly.)

TravellingGypsy

Just so I understand correctly, the lesser AQD requirement applies to anyone with a US address on their Altitude profile? If so, and at the risk of sounding naive, what's to stop anyone with access to a US mailing address using that on their profile? Plenty of folks in Canada have a vacation property, business address, or heck even a PO Box that's a short hop across the border.

I suspect you'd likely also have to book flights with a US credit card, but none of these things are incredibly difficult to obtain. It might be cheating the system, but if it works I don't see a downside. AC is not CRA, after all.

superangrypenguin

UA has asked their members to prove their residency by sending in things such as a utility bill. I suspect AC will start to do the same.*

* = random audits, not everyone has to do this.

After Burner

Isn't a Canadian address/Canadian residency required to buy a flight pass?

canadiancow

I think it's less random and more "Gee, this person always books round trips from IAH, yet their address is listed as Canada."

I would never get audited, because I book my round trips from SFO, and I've had my address on my account for years.

If you change your address tomorrow, and always book round trips out of YYZ, expect an audit.

Depends on the flight pass.