42000ft

I'm not even SE and yes, I would even jump to other (better) carriers if I lost my status in 2021. Having status with AC is more advantageous to me due to the benefits you get when flying other Star Alliance carriers. So if I lost that, I would jump ship to Emirates in a heartbeat.

Adam Smith

Seems to me like there's a lot of debate for something that's very hypothetical at the moment. Coronavirus is still evolving quickly and the impact on travel for the next 10 months is highly uncertain. Maybe AC will offer something, maybe they won't, but that will almost certainly depend on how bad this gets and how long it lasts. Maybe they lower the thresholds. Maybe they just grandfather everyone to whatever status they achieved this year. Maybe they do it case-by-case. Who knows.

Fiordland

I would look at it differently. AC who is going to be losing millions in revenue due to flight restrictions and (likely) reduced load factors needs to find a way of stimulating more travel or higher revenue from the passengers it still has. That is the entire purpose of the loyalty program.

I had status with AC a few years before Sept 11 and then for about 15 years after Sept 11. For the first year or two just after Sept 11, it was common for me to get status even though I was just under the published or revised threshold. No explination they just did it. The same with upgrades to business.

Over the last few years they had fuller aircraft and needed to stimulate loyalty less so they lost me as a loyal customer.

Today I am flying more on WS/Delta and what WS passes as status. Still end up on star from time to time and or Alaska . My flight to MWC Barcelona now canceled was a TAP ticket on TAP and AC metal. It would not have been hard to have kept me as a loyal AC customer, but they chose otherwise.

If they don't develop a sense of flexibility they will likely find many more that follow a similar path.

eigenvector

Frequent flyer programs do not cost airlines money. The benefits cost money, but they are more than paid for by the business garnered by giving people an incentive to be loyal, fly more and buy higher fares when they fly. If airlines didn't think that was true, they wouldn't offer FF programs at all.

TravellingGypsy

Completely agree. Which is why I believe it’s unlikely AC will lower the threshold for benefits — they would effectively be awarding benefits (expense), for taking in less revenue (than previous).

PB53x11

I don't think you completely agree. You evidently agree with the first part of eigenvector's second sentence ("The benefits cost money"), but not the second ("... more than paid for ...").

The fact they are taking in less revenue is irrelevant. If they lower thresholds or give bonus AQMs, they will do so looking at future revenues. They don't offer FFPs out of the goodness of their heart.

And given that there is apparently a historical precedent for this as noted above, there's at least a reasonable chance they will do it this year, if the impacts on travel continue for a few months or more.

WaytoomuchEurope

I know of several multi-national companies that have shut down all "non-essential" travel and am confident many more will follow suit. I'm almost positive my company will expand their lockdown soon.

There's reference up thread to people choosing not to fly. That's just simply untrue for many FFs. In my own case I've already lost about 50k AQMs and $15k AQDs because of this.

Again, barring catastrophe, I will be SE next year but I see that it might actually take some planning and will take me until much later in the year.

Don't forget the precedence set in 2001 was a) before AQD and b) 2/3rds of the way through the year with most people at lots of miles. This has come at the beginning of the year before people can "prove" their patterns.It's a different kettle of fish.

There is a lot of time left before AC has to make decisions, but perhaps the best and easiest thing would be to maintain the thresholds and extend the qualifying period under the guise of needing to establish new time frames for the new program. As I said though, we are months from that.

RangerNS

If AC grants status to flyers who only want to be loyal, I'll be upset.

If your organic travel level get you status, you are loyal. If your organic travel plus milage or segment runs get you started, you are loyal. If you only want to get status, you are not loyal.

They for sure need to do something for those who obtain status by flying if they are granting status for people sending regrets. Only people who show up get goodies bags. Stuff your regrets in a sack.

RatherBeInYOW

Oh yeah, for sure, worth being upset about! I mean AC status is a zero sum game right? If they get status, that $^!%$ all over you, who spent much more time in a metal tube than they did!



As canadiancow has pointed out, this is going to be a business decision. If travel impacts drag out is AC going to want to launch their new program with substantially less SEs in it than usual, or are they going to want to try and make sure those people don't use this as an excuse to change or reduce flying patterns permanently? Either way it has absolutely no impact on those of you who seem to have your panties in a bunch about the possibility of other people with black tags on their bags who did not fly & spend to the SE level in 2020. The horror.

RangerNS

Not a zero sum game, but neither an infinite pool of perks either. Lounges are busy. Concierges are busy, in person and on the phone. Upgrade slots are for sure finite. So if you want to look at it as a purely economical game of value and motivation, if I get to a point of I "got mine", others not getting theirs does, in fact help me to get more.

If we are taking a more philosophical view, then that black tag is a badge of honor distinction. Dubious distinction, I'll even give you. "I actually flew the required levels to get this" it says. Its hardly the VC. But it is something.

I'm actually more bothered by the later than the former.

ylwae

Was supposed to fly to CDG yesterday for a meeting. That meeting was cancelled due to virus concerns just a couple of hours before departure. Seems unnecessary to me but what can I do.

Since the majority of my flying is to Europe / Western Asia with a sprinkling of domestic, this could be a problem.

Chowtime

Hard to say but I already have 50K for life so if I have no chance to make SE which I've easily been able to do over the last decade, I might as well throw some miles into other programs. Maybe a case by case basis would be good. Who knows. All I know is that I should be sitting at about 60K AQM and 10-15K AQD by now but I'm actually still sitting at 0

vernonc

This.
In the business that I am in, AMZ has cancelled all travel, Microsoft has cancelled a planned partner meeting, HP has cancelled a partner event and we might cancel our partner event too. And all these events are in the US. All events and meetings anywhere is Asia are cancelled because most people do not want to attend - that includes TYO, HKG, TPE, ICN and off course anywhere in China. People do not want to even transit in these places.
Its too early to predict what AC will do but if I was to guess, it will be that everyone keeps status of this year to next year. I also fully expect to double up on promos to get people to fly, specially long haul and J. BA for example is running a very aggressive J sale out of London to US, Europe, Africa and Asia. Its probably better to run some promos and keep the planes flying at some loss rather than park planes/staff at a even bigger loss.
Other option would be to drop the qualifying required.
I also suspect that AC will not announce anything but rather apply them retroactively after 31 Dec when they have a better idea on the numbers.
Optimistically this virus event is likely to last 3 months, and a few more months to recover business travel. Optimistically. Hoping once warmer weather sets in the virus threat will diminish/end.

YXUhomebase

It seems people do make a choice whether to travel or not. The complaint here is that their companies aren’t spending money for them to travel. Everyone is free to travel in their own dime.

why should AC care who is paying. If you want status you might have to spend a lot note of your own money.

btw we know that AC had no problems culling the SE group a couple years ago with those changes. Why not again.

canadiancow

The main difference this time is that you have people who are spending $30k+ per year, and the only reason this year is different is because of COVID-19. These are profitable customers who will definitely come back if they're still SE, but might explore other options if they're not.

I'm not worried about myself. I need to burn off some remaining Aeroplan bookings (partially flown), and then I'm moving back to FPs for all my NA travel. I will qualify for 2021 the regular way, and I have two banked years.

But I fully expect to see something happen.