Maestro Ramen

Isn't the devaluation of gold (loss of seat discount) a platinum enhancement in itself

Tonic27

Well one thing I can tell you, I was delayed from Barcelona on Friday which meant I missed my connection to Leeds, having then gone to the KLM office in baggage collection in AMS only to find it was closed, then after using the automated machine I was allocated an hotel for the night with a food voucher that can only be used in the airport!?!? Not much good when it was all closing is it? #Ben Lipsey

Years ago you got hotel food and beverage allowance, not now, even had to pay for a bottle of water, certainly going down hill.


fyi I'm plat life mem

westi2002

I consider it as a devaluation for platinum: gold and silver can now choose the prefered seats for free 1 or 2 days before departure. Thus those seats have a higher occupancy and the chance you get an empty seat next to you is lower.

curiousexplorer

I think that is actually not a status benefit at all, it’s simply their legal obligation to provide those services to any affected passenger. I’m not 100% sure, but I think FB elites do not get any extra benefit in case of a disruption, except *maybe* priority processing.

Maestro Ramen

As the poster above mentioned it's their legal obligation, not a privilege, to pay for meals and refreshments so I hope you kept the receipt for that hotel meal, and that bottle of water!

lynxy

If you have a receipt, they will reimburse without fuss (as long as it's reasonable obviously )

itaexpat

I'm not Ultimate but happened to see this comment by Ben Lipsey on the focus on improving the Ultimate program, and yeah, far from starting a polemic but I'm really interested in finding out hopefully soon how FB plans to improve "simple" Platinum as well Plat still remains the highest published status tier on the FB website, but imho the increased focus on Ulti has reduced the weight of simple Plat as the highest published tier. The Platinum Service Line is a great perk that I use a lot (both phone and email), and it's nice to be greeted on long-haul flights in Y (I get to practice my French and sometimes, though rarely, drink a glass of champagne), but outside of that, not much, really.

wuzziduzziman

Appreciate the thoughts - but what additional perks do you have in mind? I think, FB platinum is pretty much on par with the high tier status of other airlines / alliances.
Ulti-perks like personal TA service or upgrade vouchers are really designed for pax who fly much more than a regular plat member (~3 times more) and would be a bit of an overkill, I guess.

MichielR

How about more lounge differentiation at hubs: BA have C, F (OWE) and CCR, LH have C, SEN (*G) and FCL whereas AFKL have C (incl Plat/E+) and LP.

With the current AFKL lounge offering I certainly would not mind a slightly less bad place to wait than the dirty, crowded, broken furniture and poorly catered current C lounge offering.

Wishful thinking, but based on the days when AMS had 3 (!) RW lounges for the highest FD tier at the time.

straniero

edit: never mind i realise i've said some serious bs here.

curiousexplorer

Wait a second - when did we go from “Platinum benefits are not enough” to “we have it great, let’s cut more from Gold”? 😵😱 I don’t think the solution is to remove benefits from somebody else (and it would also not make financial sense for AFKL, Gold is the “sweet spot” of most FF programmes for a reason), but to increase the differentiation by making it more attractive to be and to remain Platinum beyond the Platinum line. At least one extra important benefit should exist there to make it worthwhile and not encourage flyers to try to obtain elite status with other airlines after ensuring Gold at AFKL.

There is also a huge gap between Platinum and Ultimate in terms of XP, so there is lots of potential to bridge it either with extra Rewards which you earn based on various XP thresholds (eg. At 400 XP you gain a first class lounge voucher, at 500 XP an upgrade certificate etc or choice benefits) or a similar system.

itaexpat

a couple ideas below, in addition to seconding this thought:

I don’t recall exactly how upgrade vouchers work for Ulti, but I don’t think some sort of upgrade perk is far fetched at the Platinum level as well. Maybe not with European airlines, but it’s certainly in line with US airlines (having acknowledged that there’s no such thing as US-style upgrades in Europe). It’s not odd at all to imagine 1 upgrade voucher a year for Platinum. Another perk can be dedicated boarding area, either always zone 1 even when flying Y or its own Platinum boarding area.

I’ll share more as it comes to mind but the bottom line is that more differentiation is needed. Leveraging XP thresholds between Platinum and Ulti is a great idea for AFKL, but it should be in addition to expanding Platinum benefits (i.e. a Platinum pax does not need to reach 400XP to enjoy more; they can at 350 as well simply as part of being Platinum)

curiousexplorer

Fully agree. Plus some benefits which relate to when you travel with a companion, such as also giving them SkyPriority (except security that is already there in practice, but the confusion creates awkard situations which are unnecessary) and some of the other benefits, at least for 1 companion.

gncohen

I agree with lots of these suggestions, especially implementing choice benefits to choose based on one's situation. Some might want benefits for a travel companion more than others; a Plat who always flies J might have less use for an upgrade voucher than one who regularly flies Y/W; someone who transits via AMS has little use for a LP Lounge pass; etc.

I think being able to choose from several different optiosn could lend a personalization aspect and also allow AF/KL to limit the impact of each benefit (i.e. if they give every Plat an upgrade voucher, there will obviously be more demand to use them than if there's a choice between that and several other options).

b12e

This sounds like a golden path forward. Get the choice of an upgrade from Y to W (doesn't even have to be Y/W to J), LP lounge access, etc.

99% of my travel is on my own, +1 benefits are rarely - if ever - used. Most of my long haul travel is not in Y and via AMS, but it does happen that I go via CDG or in Y via AMS. Having a choice for such benefit once a year would definitely be a huge plus.

That would be nice, if it weren't that when zone 1 is announced there's usually already a horde of zone 2 and zone "any" passengers waiting in "line", blocking access to the gates.

Also I always have the feeling half the plane is zone 2. Maybe zone 1 should be J+Plat, zone 2 Gold, zone 3 silver, zone 4+5 economy statusless - and have zone 1 open before making announcements over the gate's PA system, as that's when everyone jumps up.