vernonc

Anyone who has a dog or cat will get into Zone 2 because we do not have enough customers in Zone 2.

songsc

This reminds me of some of the 3rd party SaaS contracts I have seen. Detailed SLA regarding uptime, rate limit, P50 and P99 response time, for different tiers of services/APIs, as well as the ticket response time for different priorities.

Unfortunately we as each individual customer aren't at the position to negotiate such contracts with AC.

warrens

I get where you're going with this, but P99 is typically a lot easier to achieve in a SaaS environment than (say) 99% guarantee of immediate entry to YUL International. In the modern cloud hosted world, you don't need to make big changes in the physical world to accommodate much higher peak loads. At airports, you still do.

YOWgary

On my BNE-YVR yesterday, the Zone 1 entrance was physically separate from the rest of the flight, and I walked right up while they were boarding Zone 3 without disturbing anyone. Flawless experience that doesn't burden other passengers, zero room for improvement.

On my YVR-YOW, the Zone 1 entrance was physically inaccessible, buried behind the literally 50+ people in Zone 2. Had I insisted on using it, the only way I'd have got there would be to push through the mosh pit yelling "make way, make way, I'm Zone 1, do you hear me?" like an absolute statusworth.

...but this was at a YVR gate whose physical layout didn't offer another option, short of pulling out dozens of seats to create a separate lane for a dedicated SE corral.

...and I need those seats to stay there, because the YVR MLL is now such a jam-packed cafeteria from 6:30AM throughout most of the day, that it's now far more relaxing to go up to the lounge, grab a beverage and immediately leave to go relax in peace at an empty gate. Absolutely no point in going up there anymore, aside from saving three bucks on a Diet Coke.

Both of these are issues that don't get resolved without an 18-month renovation of the relevant part of the terminal, so we're pretty much living with the status quo for the foreseeable future.

songsc

I wouldn't say it's easy in the cloud. It's true that most of the physical hardware changes are handled by GCP/AWS via Terraform and other IaaS tools, but the changes to the corresponding software architecture are also complex and expensive to implement. A system reliability project I worked on involved going from a single Redis instance to Redis cluster, database sharding, and deploying an event orchestration middleware to replace Kafka. The difficulty and complexity of a project aren't tied to the changes in physical hardwares.

While I don't think AC really owes us any tangible benefit that was never promised to begin with, I do believe that AC is responsible for diluting some of the benefits. The lounge situation is like building an infrastructure for 100 customers, but keep selling API keys because there is no SLA regarding uptime or latency anyway.

Adam Smith

Moderator note: in addition to threads on specific items like zoned boarding, there's already a recent thread on general complaints about AC, declining benefits, etc. Let's please move the broad kvetching to that thread so that this one can stay on the topic of 2024 benefits.

Diabeetus

I hope that SE gets an increased number of nominee slots.

Remember the good old days when we had 4?

Stranger

I still have not used mine... So far my wife has not needed it, either because we were on the same itinerary, or because she used her own credits But yes, I might be tempted to allocate it if there were more slots.

Plus, with these reports of ugly stories of confirmed upgrades getting cancelled, we have grown wary of upgrades.

Anyway, I would not hold my breath.

acysb87

I do remember those days.

My son , a SE , is my nominee. He can access all those E-credits I have.

King Chung Huang

I wish the lounge passes expired on January 15 like eUpgrade credits! Just realizing now that it'd be really useful for return trips from Christmas/New Years holidays.

Stranger

Seems that free wifi for a year i no longer an option for SEs in 2024?

billdokes

On AC 150 right now, YYC - YYZ - A321 - FIN 462.

Wifi is sooooo sloooooowww that every FT page refresh is taking up to 30 secs to load.

Adam Smith

Based on what?

TheCanuckian

Unless you know something we don't, it's still showing up on the Select Benefits list (granted that's still for 2023).

jmcintosh

What is the benefit to AC in not announcing 2024 benefits?? They can�t be undecided at this point.