wjw

100%! Congrats to OP, and join in potentially celebrating with you both. At this point I’m really trying to make the tough decision as to whether I make the SQD jump to hit SE or just be happy with my 75K. With my current travel plans I’ll end the year well over 100K SQM, and will be somewhere in the $19,xxx on SQD. Need to decide if SE is worth enough to take a useless flight or upgrade a current work booking out of pocket.

Perhaps I’ll just leave it to the gods and put in e-up requests with $500 co pays and if two of them clear before year’s end that would do $20k+ SQD.

YVRtoYYZ

Stay a 75K.

cooleddie

1) Concierge service was not what I thought it was. They don't book restaurants for you. To be fair, the description of concierge service was quite vague.

2) I got really annoyed on how flight attendants would say that im so young to be super elite (in a good way). That was probably more annoying than anything.

ACYYZ/SD

Always appreciate knowing when the threshold is about to be crossed and a SE-To-Be is on the flight. Will do whatever we can to make it a memorable occasion.

The Macker

It was really a non event for me when I became a SE , 5 years ago. Then 3 months later a 6 am call on a very cold January YWG morning, The phone rang twice, it said unknow number, so I ignored it. Then a voice to text message showed up. It was the YWG Concierge calling. Our 11 am flight to YYC was going to be late and we would miss our connection to OGG(Maui)..

She said if we got to the airport, she would put us on the 7 am. This was 6;15 am. Luckily our bags were packed, we made it to the airport somewhat dazed and confused about all of this.

I am certain this level of recovery would never have happened without being a SE.

We did get on the flight and after a longer layover in YYC, we made our Maui flight. This is when I finally realized what the value of a Concierge service really meant.

When the travel world is falling apart, they seek you out and get to fixed up. They have come through dozens of times over the years.

The rest of the perks are nice, but dealing with travel disruptions keeps me on the Air Canada hamster wheel for remaining a SE.

krayZpaving

Out of interest, who would tell you this? The concierge team being proactive? Or you'd need to stumble across the info somehow? Or passenger tells you themselves?

Adam Smith

I first qualified for SE in 2013. In my early days of (somewhat) frequent flying around 2007, it was amazing just to obtain Elite status (first time in 2009; not counting the one time I obtained the lowest-tier status in 1999), and it felt like a lot of travel. And relative to most people, it was. But SE seemed insane. 100K EQM or 95 segments was such a massive leap. In 2011, I actually got to something a bit north of 80K, I think (3 TATL trips in one year, crazy!), but even then, SE seemed a long way off.

In 2013, I had less long-haul travel - only one TATL and one trip to Colombia - but was in IAH constantly, and partway through that year seems to have been the beginning of the glorious period when someone decided that our company's policy on buying "semi-flexible" air tickets meant that we could buy Latitude fares on AC. All those 25% CoS bonuses made a big difference.

As we were getting late in the year, I realized I was going to get to about 95K AQM and thought it would be silly to not at least try out what SE was like, at least once. So I booked a trip to BOS (in J) for just before the end of the year, to go hang out with a buddy and go to Patriots game, to get the necessary AQM.

I don't think I really felt anything though, to answer the OP's question. The YYZ-YYC that put me over 100K was just another YYZ-YYC flight, nothing special. When the package came, it was just another package. I had gone from being Elite for a few years to 50K to 75K to SE, and those were the days when they tended to change the look of the kits a fair amount from year to year, so it wasn't that big a deal to get a different kit. I didn't celebrate at all.

It definitely took a while before I really realized how useful being SE was though, especially the Concierges. The first time they proactively got me out of a jam was October 2015. Had I known the kind of stuff they could do, they probably could have helped me sort out a mess that happened in July 2014 too. Well, maybe. We'll never know.

Perhaps if I had been on FT at the time and better appreciated the benefits of SE, I might have felt that it was a bigger occasion. Certainly I now don't relish the idea of flying AC without being SE. Then again, if I were no longer SE, I probably wouldn't book as many silly things, might not care about Priority Rewards and just buy J for my couple of trips a year or whatever, so who knows. I've comfortably requalified for 2023, and should hit 250K for the banked year (would have qualified for that a couple days ago, except I cancelled last weekend's trip), so that's good.

But qualifying the first time definitely didn't feel all that exciting.

zooz

Just curious, how young were you that they were making that comment?

Adam Smith

There are a bunch of us who've had that comment at times. Most SEs are middle aged, high powered business types, often with some grey in their hair. Anyone who looks under about 40 is likely to hear at some point they they look young to be SE.

canadiancow

I stopped getting it nearly as much around the time I turned 30. Even in my late 20s, it was a very common occurrence.

I still remember boarding a SFO-YVR with the bovine (who is 5 years younger), taking our seats in something like 3AC, and the SD immediately came over and asked if we'd traded seats with someone. Because we couldn't possibly be the two SEs on her manifest.

But now I get the occasional comment about being so young to be MM. But that actual has more of a logical basis. One year of flying makes you SE. It takes a bit more effort to hit MM.

zrh2yvr

First time I made it was 2018. My year is almost always known in advance - right down to the short hauls etc. so there is little uncertainty. Being outside Canada - $10,000 AQD was also on the target. I had a long RTW ticket for work that would be in February. PVG-ATL was one of the routes - so we got everyone (6 of us) to take PVG to Canada (I went to YVR - they went via YYZ). I needed the AC pro-rate $$$ on the RTW (PVG-YVR-YYC-YYZ-ATL - 4 segments) in order to get to the 10,000 spend. (In this era of needing $20k outside Canada - I will never be able to reach SE again so that type of craziness will never happen again - i.e. getting my group to take AC like this). I had a little room to spare on the miles reaching around 112K. All in, the year included - - 1 RTW (with a few miles left on the ticket for 2019 - see below). January - back from GRU-LON. 4 short-haul returns within Europe, 2 J tickets to CAnada, 1 Lat ticket to Canada and one outbound to ZRH-SYD. I made the status on ZRH-NRT - December 15. It was a pretty good feeling.

For 2019 - the flights were scheduled out and added up and it looked like I would be short. Now - when you get over 90k in 2018 - there was some 5,000 SQM kickoff bonus to start 2019 from 2018. I then could see I would still be short - so I picked lower qualification at 95,000 for 2019. Then - I was still a little short on my forecast so I went back to my RTW ticket from 2018 for which it started in Germany and since I was only to Switzerland - I could keep going as long as I was under the miles - - so - I took a trip out to the old Istanbul airport on TK - out and back on a Saturday and spent 6 hours in the old lounge. That was Feb 2019. When the year was done had 98,033 and AQD of 11,902. Started with the return from Australia - MEL-ZRH (SQ/LX First), TK to IST, 6 Europe short-hauls, 1.5 J tickets to Canada, 2 Lat tickets to Canada, a full round trip to Asia on LX. Little did I know that making it in 2019 was critical.

The future is going to be difficult because it is really close to impossible to make SE if you are in Europe and have a global mix of travel across star alliance. It comes down to really needing to make 4 or 5 J tickets to Canada (some people for sure do that) and for me - my travel is really 50/50 between AC and LX - - I spend easily >$20k on travel but to get $20k solely with AC will never happen. It was fun while it lasted. I will always have 3-4 trips to Canada in a year - but my spend will only be able to reach around $10k (I guess now - I only have to reach $6k - as beyond that there is no benefit - - i.e. - lower spend now . . . than before).

I will likely miss the Aeroplan redemption process (free cancelations) the most - - so - at least for 2023 I am still good - - with all the crazy bonuses - double counting - 2 years - etc . . . I will just make 20,000 - by around $50 - - with ~200,000 miles - with all the rollovers etc. . . But from 2024 - life will change a lot . and perhaps for the best!!!

I will commend them on their service to SE's - it really is a step up - but even the SE's have had hiccups over the past 2 months so it's not perfect.

ACYYZ/SD

All of the above. Concierge, advisory from Management, and sometimes the Customer.

Jebby_ca

My first time crossing the Super Elite threshold was back in 2010, on AC 34 somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Seated in 18A, as it was still the paper cert and I was out of SSWUs. It was all planned around an epic trip to climb Mount Fuji, so that combined with crossing the Super Elite threshold for the first time, I had a little celebration for myself onboard. At least I was able to upgrade my YVR - YYZ segment and enjoy part of the trip in business class! That cookie and ice cream on board was one of the best ways to celebrate that threshold!

There was no real proactive notification from the flight crew or the concierge when I was about to cross the 1MM threshold, even as a SE. My partner made a few calls and was able to have the SD do something special for me onboard and got the concierge to meet me at the gate on arrival in YYZ... except that was on the flight after the one where I actually crossed the threshold. My miles from the flight crossing the threshold hadn't posted yet, so they miscalculated.

Bohemian1

SSWUs - ah, the good old Paper Age. I'm also old enough to remember cookie and ice cream. And even hot towels.

I'm still amazed by the people here who know which flight they were on for x event. Past flights kinda blur for me.

capedreamer

Does this still happen to you? It happened to me on a YYZ-LHR flight last week and I had to chuckle since I'm 34 now! X_X

To answer the OP's question, and as a few others have said, honestly the most prevalent feeling I have is the anxiety of losing this status I'm now addicted to.