hfly

Hmmm, how exactly will lounges next year be busier than lounges were 2 months ago? Please explain? Today is April 20, 2020.......the amount of people that have status will be almost exactly the same on April 20, 2021 as it is today. If we suNow, pose that by October AFKL gets back up to 80% schedule, maybe you might get an odd person who flies a hell of a lot, and gets status from nothing, or goes up in status, but from what you are saying these sorts of people do not bother you. You will see less people in the lounges however because guess what, a lot of people will eb flying less, either because they are UNEMPLOYED, or because certain areas of the World may still be hot spots, or whatever. So the question then becomes, and which is most important.......what will the situation look like on April 20, 2022. Well, you can be comforted in knowing that there may very well be more lounge space, because quite a lot of people are NOT going to requalify between 2021-2022, for the same reasons that I just wrote.

Now to explain what you cannot seem to understand, and this is why FB did this in two tranches,and why they are extending status. Besides the obvious, that no one is flying, is simply because it is a COMPETITIVE world out there. Being based in AMS, you might have forgotten that the Netherlands is a tiny country and if it were dependent solely on Dutch traffic KLM would be the size of JAT, it depends on transfer traffic, as do most European airlines, so believe it or not the vast majority of FB status holders are neither Dutch (nor French), so if one of the carriers extends status they all have to extend status, otherwise they will be seen as in inferior choice for a number of reasons. FB did not care what Air Canada did, nor CX, nor Aegean, nor Qantas. But they did/do care what the big 3 US groups and the big 3 European group did/do. The Europeans tried to play "cheap" for a few minutes, BA and FB with a 25% reduction, LH by saying that they would do something, but not announce it. Then the US carriers one upped them and all went for 1 year extensions, so the Europeans followed, FB and BA, and soon to be followed by LH. It is really simple actually.

You want to talk about the "danger" of someone getting their status matched and flying other airlines the next year? Sort of really boring, and repetitive as that has been the "fear" echoed by some on FT every time a status has been extended, everytime a carrier has done a status match, etc. Guess what, it does not make that much difference? Why? Because unless you are in the top 20,000 fliers globally (in good times) it is impossible for you or anyone to repeatedly and consistently maintain multiple statuses across more than one airline for a consecutive period of more than 5 years...........and if you ARE one of those travelers, guess what? You already have multiple status across several carriers.

I have to admit, this whole conversation is really moot to me, being PFL for a decade, but I really find it amusing how some people feel that something is being taken from them like this............

Mirk

I understand both viewpoints and obviously I would love to preserve my XPs balance instead of using it to ride through this period but I will survive if things stay that way.
To me, the biggest problem is the wording and method FB used.
I got an email, a push notification and a post published on their website to tell me that everyone gets 12 extra months of elite status and then reading the small lines, I discover that because I already have the XPs, I'm not getting 12 extra months... Did someone say emotional rollercoaster?
Why couldn't they just say there will be no downgrade of status in the next 12 months?

maxvor

My feeling is that you somehow got fixated on analogy of status to non-scarce resource, that just status without associated benefits of course is. I think what this example shows is that while you can 'copy and paste' status level achievements, you cannot copy and paste lounges, priority queues etc, in the same way as it would not be reasonable to expect gold medals to be copy-pasted. I might be wrong though about what person wanted to say, so I'll leave it at this.

It's artificial in a sense of being cherry-picked to serve your opinion in a situation when there is not analogous no matter how much you try to make it look that way. Maybe artificial is a bad word again, sorry, English is not my native language.

Again, you are somehow fixated on inflation of status holders, while my whole point is about inflation of associated benefits. I don't have background in economics but in my limited understanding inflation happens when the production of the means of purchasing goods outpaces the production of goods themselves. In real world that would be printing more money than the amount of goods and services added to the market that this money can buy.
In FFP it means it give away more benefits then there was money spend with airline that can be used to return these benefits to people with status. I hope it didn't sound to complicated. So some people who earned XPs needed to gain the status paid money to airlines (=produced value), and some people who didn't earn it will use the value produced by the first group without really paying for it (=printed money).
In normal circumstances there is always a bit of inflation (you have status matches, promos etc.), but they don't happen en masse.
With that particular policy there will be quite a massive inflation of benefits, it's difficult to quantify, but let's compare it to real world, with some developed countries I would say in normal economic times it will be say 1-2% a year, while in some shock it might jump to say 10%. Bad? Yes, some countries had political systems changed in circumstances like these. But we are not at that scale with FPP, so not that bad. But you know what is bad? It's not 10% inflation per se, it's the fact that some people were allowed to print money, while others only produced value but not a single note of helicopter money was sent to them.
I know my analogy is as bad as yours, but I would argue it is way closer to what really happens, feel free to disagree.

I think this story might have been true maybe 10-15 years ago, when there was some kind of loyalty. These days absolutely biggest amount of travelers i know that have any FF status with some airline, have a somewhat lower or similar status with another airline. Sure, there will be some business travel (greatly reduced), those people would fly with KL/AF no anyways, no matter if this policy would be in place or not, so you couldn't really loose them. Quite a lot of people who will spend their own money will be overwhelmingly selecting based on price/convenience (and yes, maybe with an idea of building higher status with another airline, which will undoubtedly become easier - others won't just sit and wait, they might lower thresholds, attract with bonuses etc.). This is about people who "you might be able to keep". Now look at those who you are very likely to loose - pretty much everyone who is very likely to already have a status with another airline and who sees no point chasing higher status that is way to far, but who already secured his current status for another year.
If you think you're more right, let's see if FB agrees. I do expect them to come up with lots of ad-hoc policies or some other patch work once they realize that what I describe is way more likely to happen.

Look, I'm not a whiner, and not jealous, I just don't like when people put labels on someones whose perspective they don't share. Even if it's a minority of people. Especially if it's a minority. I didn't get what I wanted in fact. I wanted to go for Platinum and now I absolutely have no way to achieve it and no help given. I don't care about Gold, I was already Gold for a good part of 2021 without this giveaway. So you cannot say that I got what I wanted. In fact with current policy even if I still wanted to go for Platinum I have hardly any chance. But again, I'm OK with that, what I'm not OK with is that somehow you seem to know what others wanted, or you seem to think that they should be ok with what they get (and they get nothing for free, so noone can say they were 'given' something) and it gives you right to call them whiners somehow. That's weird.

maxvor

Exactly that. The marketing approach about it is really annoying. One would think they can filter out those who already qualified anyways with one single SQL query and send them somewhat customized e-mail without sounding like 'we care about you and that's why you get nothing'.

maxvor

You have to think beyond just KLM and AF lounges. There are plenty of airports where you would normally have a choice of a few - i have 0 doubt they will be consolidated due to less people travelling, thus having higher load factor anyways. Also, crowding doesn't only mean physical aspect, but also lounge offering, customer support services availability. This will be no doubt cut, and not only because of they general cost cutting, but also because quite a big group of customer with higher statuses didn't actually 'subsidize' them because they didn't need to earn their status. I can of course be wrong and we all will be positively surprised, but previous experience tells me it's a futile hope.


You call it competitive world, I call it herd mentality. As I wrote in another post, there are so many FF travelers these days that have statuses with a few airlines, that delaying your response by a month or two won't make any difference. Zero, nada. But what FB did, they rushed into something because others did (not true really, BA did something, Delta, but the rest were also very slow to respond). The result? You had a policy that didn't make much sense after just a month of introduction. Yet, they rush again, and introduce another one, which will for sure require fixing.
As a small remark. Netherlands is not as small a market itself as you might think. 3 daily Emirates flights (2 on A380), 1.5 daily Qatar flights, plus Etihad flights, a number of other airlines for whom AMS is an outstation without lots of connecting traffic doesn't support your claim. I do get that KLM is nor directly competing with ME3 and in oligopoly over Atlantics, so they have less passengers available to them. But so is almost any other airline so they try to 'steal' citizens from other countries for connections.

I think you seriously underestimate just how easy it is to have statuses with multiple airlines these days, if you are invested. And believe me, there are way more than 20K people worldwide who spend a bit of time on that. Just to give you an idea, I have at least mid-tear status with 5 airlines right now, or maybe 6...forgot already. Plus a few low tier once that I don't even know when expire. Ok, I do fly a bit and do spend a bit. But if I were doing it say 5 times less, maintaining meaningful status with at least 2 airlines and 2 hotel chains is a peace of cake. I was in China this year, and I can assure you there are more than 20K people in China alone. Everyone and their dog is some kind of elite.

Concerto

They will never find a perfect or ideal solution, of course. I myself have 212XP and need another 88XP before end October. If they award me these XP, I have very little motivation to fly AFKL before that date, assuming things start rolling back to normal. My original plans would have seen me earning another 200XP or so in the next 4 months, which I was planning to use as rollover for the next year, always trying to stay a bit ahead.

From my standpoint, best would have been if they could have simply frozen the year and our balances and let us pick up this time next year with the same balances. But I recognize that would not suit everyone and might be difficult to implement. Don't forget, things could change a lot before this is over. I don't think anything is written in stone, so any number of changes could happen before year's end.

AZ112

simple: because EVERYONE could fly from January to March and only A FEW (like me) flew and accumulated XP, others did not.
to make it easier: it is as if instead of 12 months the qualification was made of only 3 months this year, due to covid.
I think that it’s ok stop the downgrade, but I don't think it's fair to burn 3 months of travel.
ps: please, stop to talk with us in this such rude way, labeling people.

San Gottardo

The fun of this discussion starts wearing off so I won't do a rebuttal of every argument brought up, But this one intrigues me, just from a logic point of view:

If I understand you correctly, by "inflation of benefits" you mean that there will be more lounge visits, longer lines at priority check-in, etc. - correct?

In which case, could you please explain how that should happen? Mathematically more lounge visits etc can come from two things:

1. More status card holders than before - vey unlikely to happen, see above. People that will have a status card next year are those that either requalified by earning the XP (the likes of you), people who would have qualified in a normal year and now get a push from FB as they simply cannot fly (many), and some that would not have requalified. So the only people in the lounges next year that otherwise wouldn't be there otherwise are the ones that would not have qualified this year but end up doing so thanks to the push. But these people are in the lounge this year already, so from that angle there is no addition of new members. You may have a net addition of new members if some people qualify with miles this year - but given that it's nearly impossible to fly there won't be that many. So in sum: not more card holders than before in a signficant fashion.
2. Status holders use the lounge etc more often. Why would that be the case? If at all, many status members will fly as much as today, so they don't add to the crowding. The majority will probably fly less, so that actually takes crowding away from the lounges. Add to that the fact that airlines will only offer 70-80% of the capacity they offered before March, and that reduces lounge population even more

So, with those facts, how is FB's initiative making lounges more crowded? Can you demonstrate that logically?

maxvor

I already answered that above, but I appreciate it's a lot of text, so in a nutshell, there is likely 3 factor: you'll have less lounges since some of them will consolidate (due to say terminals being closed or just because of cost optimization). Immediate example that comes to mind from my flying patterns: you have AZ and AF lounges in JFK literally 20m away from each other and with flights departing around same time. Some lounges my close whole sections (say, AF in 2F will close a floor). And then the crowded is not only about capacity, but also about offering, customer service availability etc.
My point there will be scarcity of resource one way or the other. If AF/KL feels resource is in abundance, they'll see it as possiblity to optimize and thus will create a scarcity. I don't want to call anyone who think otherwise 'naive', but time will show.

hfly

maxfor...seriously. I thought you were talking from the position of a "High Roller" at least 5 year mid-tier statuses??????!!!!" Nah, not what I was talking about nor meant - I think you know that. In case it was not obvious, I am talking about top tier statuses (and for the avoidance of doubt I am not referring to super or vanity statuses, whether they be Club 2000, or Ultimate, LH Hons, Concierge Key or whatever, I am talking straight top tier actual status). I am talking about being able to maintain 2 or more for a period of at least 2-3 cycles. You see, that is why many airlines will match status, but will only do it once, they give you a chance and if you blow it, it's over. Over 85% who do regular matches fail, it is one of the reasons that manya irlines resorted to challenges instead.
Let me illustrate myself to you what I really mean, as I do not think you understand, and perhaps that is is the reason that you are "coming from" where you are in your writing/experience.

"I seriously underestimate" No sir, I believe that you are the one who does not understand;

I have maintained at least five top tier statuses concurrently for over 25 years, often with a 6th or even 7th mid or top tier status at any given time. This included (or includes):

FB (and its predecessors) for 21 years straight, I have been PFL for almost a decade, and in many years have maintained a "platinum level" of flying even though I do not need to.
I have maintained BA EC Status every year since the program started in 1990, bar one, and have been Gold for over 22 years......straight.....and am of course Lifetime Gold
I maintained Top Tier Status with Delta, whatever that top tier was called, Royal, Platinum, Diamond, for over 2 decades and am a Lifetime 2MM Gold. Previous to that I was Platinum with Pan Am for at least 5 years, there was a 2-3 year gap between the two!
I maintained Lufthansa Senator Status for over 16 years .............straight, and will be Lifetime Frequent Traveler when and if they launch it next year, and not too far away from Lifetime SEN.
I have been in the top tier (Elite and then Elite Plus) with Turkish Airlines every single year since they started their own standalone program.......17 years IIRC.

For a variety of reasons, over the last several I pretty much stopped flying Emirates, I had been Gold with them for 12 years, so I went to Silver and now am nothing with them.

During, and before this period I at times had top status with British Midland, Dragon Air, Etihad, Alitalia, American, United, Northwest and Malaysian.

Now I kept flying through Lockerbie, the Gulf Wars (both of them), 9/11, SARS, H1N1, the 2008/9 crisis and anything else that I cannot remember over the last 30+ years. In none of these did things just "shut down" I remember being one of 5 passengers on a JFK-LHR flight at the eve of the Gulf War, a month later the flights were pretty full again, BA went down from 8 frequencies a day at the time to 5! I remember being the only passenger in Business Class on a CX flight HKG-LHR during SARS, 2 months later things were back to normal (almost), even after 9/11, I remember being on several full flights all over the place a month or so afterwards. This is different, there are essentially no flights, Belavia looking good to you? So you took a couple of flights in January and February perhaps, you want a medal? Since this debate here started AF has openly spoken of only being back up to 30% capacity in July.

Guess what, there are no lounges open now, they may not be open this year? Whether the amount of Plats remains the same next year or not (and it will remain essentially exactly the same) you think that will effect whether they close or consolidate lounges more or less? Are you kidding me? Next you are going to say that they should not allow in STE+ members because they are drinking too much of your precious Chocomel! (Oh yeah, that's right, they got rid of it over a decade ago because it cost too much!). You think that more or less Elites effects your award levels or availability or they might decimate the programme because of it? They have managed to do that on their own, and do not need Covid or anything else to help them along that route.

Also timewise, Let's get something straight. Delta did it, and UA matched it within 6 hours. AA took about a week to match and add their bells and whistles (which I have to admit were better), then BA and FB matched in another week. You think that "slow"?

San Gottardo

Does BA actually extend all status members for a year? I thought all they were doing was lower qualification thresholds for those whose renewal date was in March, April or June this year. Must have missed that.

hfly

San Gottardo, yes you are right!!! They have not done it yet........you know, I have in my "subscribed threads" about 7 different threads regarding status extensions, and obviously made a mistake. That being said, I would not be surprised if they do formally announce it in the next 10 days.

maxvor

i wasnt aware of UA, sorry dont follow. I havent heard BA doing anything but lowering a threshold. Did i miss something? But i'm still confused about what you are trying to say. I would argue in these conditions you can wait with your response for a month and not hurt any of your fan base. And what you're basically saying FB had a pressure to respond to North American competition ASAP, right? Cause not M&M, not BA not any other european programme did anything. I would actually prefer them to spend those extra 10 days and think it through. I do hope that BA comes up with something better. AA did, why can't others?
Not everyone cares about top status: for variety of reasons I prefer not to go for top status with 1-2 airlines, but have my travel spread without aim of achieving highest tiers. I consistently managed to achieve at least mid tiers with 4-6 airlines every year for the last 6-7 years without any status matches whatsoever. I mostly travel premium cabins where it matters and status plays limited role, and I don't really care personally knowing your CSD. I guess lots of people too.
On the other part, with that lots of bragging you wanted to say that you were talking about top tiers, right? Sorry, it wasnt clear in your initial message, but what difference does it make? Majority of frequent travellers i know have statuses with multiple airlines, whether top tier or not. Progress on one typically lags behind the other one a bit. If one airline gives them a tier for free, majority will shift their 'irrational flying' behavior to the other one. So FB policy is basically encouraging people to bring money to the competitor, the opinions of some other people in this thread tells me that it's not only my odd friends who do that. If you wanted to disagree with that, maybe you can make it a bit more clearly?
To wrap it, because this discussion really went off rails: chocomel or not, people who are not getting any extra with the policy, are subsidizing others (or subsidize the airline), by much or not doesn't matter. They are subsiziding enough in current period so that at least not be labeled with all pejorative terms. Feel free to disagree with it, I don't care, it's just in my culture it's not OK to decide for others whether their money is important or not. Money has a relative value, and you cannot tell other person how he should feel or should not feel when it comes to THEIR money.

hfly

No sir, you were the one who thought having 5 or 6 mid tier statuses was a big deal and bragworthy! I just thought that I would enlighten you as to what having status really meant. Low and mid tier status in reality mean little for the airlines and often few real perks for fliers. I mean seriously if I for example targeted only mid tier status, I guess I could have done what 14 airlines a year every year for who knows how many years! In any case, if all you have is mid-tier status, why do you care about the lounges so much? If you are flying "premium cabins where it matters" I assume you mean long haul, and if you are only earning mid-tier status, you are not flying long haul very often, so therefore barely ever using lounges? So therefore not using the lounges that much? I mean the really funny thing is that I "and most people I know" (because I have never seen anyone reference their friends so much as this thread) who are serious FF'ers try to spend as little time at the airport as possible, meaning often skipping the lounge(s) most of the time, I probably see a lounge one out of 4 or 5 flights. I mean if you think that "status plays limited role" then why on earth do you care that FB is extending status, especially as it has already been proven to you that there is no difference at all between this years and next years numbers. Seriously though at the end of the day what you are really upset about is that your big 208 XP's are not being carried forward, because you either so diligently carried them forward over the years, or because you managed to take a couple of big trips in the first 2 months of this year, and others will receive the same benefit and get their status renewed because they "didn't earn" it? Seriously?

San Gottardo

For the sake of argument, let's build on that one then.

Let's assume that lounge space gets reduced. Part of that shouldn't be a problem as there will be less capacity in the market, so less passengers to use the lounges. Then you have the passengers who use the lounges. Who are they:

1. Status card holders that have requalified by earning the XPs - surely we agree that they have a right to use the lounges, don't we?
2. Status card holders who would have requalified in a normal year but now needed a push from FB - you don't seem to mind those either, so they are OK to use the lounge
3. Status card holders who would not have requalified but now did thanks to the push - you feel they got something they didn't deserve. Fine. There aren't that many of them, as described above.

So basically your "scarcity of resources" argument boils down to feeling mistreated because a small number of people who would not have been in the smaller lounge next year turn out to be there. Making the place a little more crowded than it would have been.

You are free to find a synonym for the W-word, but in my eyes and in those of many others, that is what it is.

Then there is the other argument that came up: "if I had received the same push I could have kept more XP and I would have made it one level up, from Gold to Platinum". True. But there again, all I can say is that (i) get real, these are extraordinary times, we all suffer more or less - and reaching your status promotion a little later is a minor suffering, and (ii) the intent of FB was not to put everybody in a situation where they would have been as if nothing had happened, but just not to let people fall further. Big difference.