Land-of-Miles

Mrs LoM and I run our years to the same date (this seemed to happen by accident rather than design). I can see the issue in trying to align membership years in that it would cause significant unfairness if that gave dramatically longer membership years.

Is a 2 week extension possible only to retain a membership tier or is it possible to be used to attain a new tier?

Mrs LoM could get a CCR card based upon existing flights if she was allowed a 2 week extension, so this could be a significant positive development for our household.

jcm9000

For most people being added to a household account would a solution (assuming they do not already have decent status i guess) just be to set up new members to the household account under a new member number? Whoever had the lowest status would need to 'take one for the team', but it would only be for a year and solve all the problems in the long run. I set up a household account a few weeks back and added my wife who was blue anyway (and couldn't remember her ba number) and it set her account up with the same renewal date as mine (november 8th - but in 2013) - so technically has a 13 month period. I wonder if that built in a grace period or if the new account could potentially get a very long first period? And since a lightbulb just went on in my head - can you set up another account for someone with the same name and address? At least the idea would work for anyone moving (which i suspect most household accounts would be new couples?).

ColdWalker

@ David-A - in the cases you quote the people just need to open a new account if their flying patter is changing that drastically. Not strictly kosher, but hard for BA to detect and I cannot imagine they would want to anyway. And its easy enough to move or use the orphaned miles of a low frequency flyer.

Either way, my argument was not about what would be helpful to the people affected. It was about the commercial imperative for BA. Did the people in question decide to fly with someone else as a result of not having a reset/rolling year? Had they had the reset/rolling year but a higher threshold so they they still didn't make silver (a necessary corollary of changing the rules to keep the numbers of people in each tier constant) what difference would it make to them?

As someone said earlier, we often think with BAFT knowledge a forethought. In reality many people will not have worked through their thinking about the BAEC that thoroughly.

Sorry but still not convinced.

MPH1980

The sum total of his knowledge (and all he really cares about) is flying = miles, Silver = lounge. I've been the one guiding him into the right American Airlines lounges for our domestic connections and ensuring he gets the right benefits.

I've been lurking here for a while to gain knowledge and it does strike me that once you become immersed in the world of status, points and miles it can become easy to forget that most people just don't care that much about the program to investigate deeply.

M.

ColdWalker

A few weeks ago I took a colleague to the lounge to guest in. I told the lounge dragoon I was guesting him in, and she said "But Mr Walker, Mister ANO is already a gold member"!

Many don't know the benefits involved, let alone the details of the scheme, even though they have reached a high tier.

I could also point you to a whole raft of people who have managed to earn 100,000 miles or more, yet have no idea how the whole thing works!

LTN Phobia

No different from some people on M&M etc whose flights are concentrated towards the end of the year - they will be statusless until the end of the year, for instance, or if the calendar year system doesn't suit them.

Frequent flyer programmes are not designed to suit everyone's circumstance.

Would you rather go for the movable year end up to have only 12 months of status from the date of qualification/requalification?

David-A

Airline loyalty programmes are multi dimensional.

- Duration of relationship (accumulation of miles),
- level of concentrated relationship (higher tier status for defined periods, per year).

These people had accumulated BA Miles/Avios balances over many years, they used them periodically for family trips. Bring spouse, etc.

They had no desire to being a new relationship with BA. (And in one case they were in such a 'legal/contractual compliance with T&C is EVERYTHING' industry/role that they would not have dared go against the T&C.

Indeed, I can recall vaguely a couple(!) of threads here over the years, where people were asking BA to close their BAEC account so they could join again with a different year end date. BAEC refused over the phone, so they were saying they could, themselves legal, just 'work around it', they would have to miss out.

But why should anyone? Why should BAEC reward people who have just signed up better than existing members who have given them business in the past?

David-A

You can say the same about anything. Bank account interest rates, credit cards, club memberships, ....

However, we have a situation where people who DO know about it, are disadvantaged by virtue of having given BA previous business, compared with someone who has not.

And if I was BA, I'd say that is not right.

David-A

There is an important difference though between current BAEC (individual years, set in stone) and M&M (calendar years, same for everyone).

Under M&M, if we take two people who fly identical flights/fares from date X going forward. They will both earn the same status, etc. From thouse flights.

If one of the people had an existing relationship with M&M they would possibly achieve more if they had previous flights before that date. But they would never achieve less becasue of their existing relationship.

The same is not true of BAEC, if the membership year end is badly timed.

Persoanlly, I prefer individual year ends, also I think there should be a number of benefits to BA about distributing the year ends of the membership across the year - many of these benefits Ive never seen mentioned on FT, but I can think of quite a number across various areas, not just logistical. I also see flaws in calendar year ends, even though they would solve lots of BAEC problems.

I do think a system that was built upon the idea of personal year ends that BAEC has, could be made much more fair, and easier to under stand, and better for both parties than calendar year ends.

Do you agree that if we have two people and one gives move business over the same timespan to BA than the other, he should achive higher reward/value than the one who gave less?

Do you agree that if we have two people who give the same business to BA over exactly the same period, they should be rewarded the same?

It is hard to have the perfect scheme, but it is right to seek to have a fair one if you can. Especially if it would also be even easier to understand.

Sorry, could you clarify exactly what you are asking. I would love to answee, but want to make sure we are clear.

I think we are talking about two separate issues here.

Under the current system, two people fly 600 TP in three months. And neither of them have a year end half way through. So they both (from a standing start) get to Silver.
However one of them had given BA some business in the past, had a year end date, was converting their Tesco, etc. So they had a year end just after they achieved status.
So they could have it for 1 or 2 months, plus the 12 next year.

A new member signedup just before the trip, they get their status for 11 months, plus the 12 next year.

That is a feature of the change to the current format of promotion.

I was not actually talking about that here, but I would talk about it, if that is what you are asking.

There is no interplay between this issue and the rolling 12 months though. If someone reached 300 TP, they would (under current rules) have their Bronze for the rest of their current year (which would have started at the date of the earliest flight in the last 12 months contributing to that 300), plus all of the next year.

As per a normal promotion under the current rules. The current rules improved some problems with the old ones, they also introduced some unfairness too. I think they were a step in the right direction, but could be improved.

LTN Phobia

Sorry, I completely messed up that sentence!

I was trying to ask if it would be preferable to have a moveable year end (i.e. year end can be moved, and then reset upon attaining a status) but for the status to last just 12 months from the date of re/qualification.

I think it's called "pot luck". There is no fair/unfair in pot luck, really.

Besides, for most people, having held a BAEC membership but not having attained status already means they have not been flying much on BA anyway, although they may have flown a bit. It's a risk/benefit decision whether to join without flying a lot or not, because they might be disadvantaged in the future if they already have a membership.

The only time when it becomes somewhat reasonable to consider a membership year reset is when switching from one OW programme to another and the person has a good track record of flying with the carrier to which he is moving the programme. In this case the person already has a high level of loyalty to that carrier and perhaps would warrant a bit of consideration but I don't think it's necessary to change the entire system for that.

I don't really think there is much fault in the current system. If everyone can reset their membership year end at will, it will be rather farcical.

travellingblade

The problem with a rolling year end for Blues is that you ultimately end up with two types of Blue members.

1. Those who have never earned status and have a rolling year end
2. Those who had and subsequently lost status and have a fixed year end

In order to keep a level playing field you would need to revert people in group 2.) to a rolling year end after they lose their status.

David-A

I think they are clearly separate issues. I would not have designed the current promotion rules/behaviour, but it is completely separate to the questions of:
- rolling years, and also
- abilty to reset/change year end.

And with regard to rolling: I would not implement it in a way that gave any advantage over the current scheme.
And with regard to reset or change the year end, I would NOT implement it in a way that gave anyone any advantage.


I think you could also say it is bad deisgn.
When there are simple alternative designs that would solve the problem, and be just as easy, or easy for the end user too.

Indeed, but if the scheme had a design that removed the obstacle, it would encourage people to come BA sooner, and never put a barrier upon defectors into the scheme, etc.

But if nobody would gain any advantage from allowing the change, what is the problem with doing so?

Why farcical? (Serious question.)

What circumstances are you worried about where people would want to do this?

David-A

Indeed you would, but that is not a problem.

I have outlined this a few times in previous threads. The way it would work is that after dropping to Blue, you would have an initial year end date 12 months from the date you drop.
- So basically none of your flights in your last Bronze year would be considered.

If you have not achieved status by the end of that 12 month period it rolls forward from that point, month by month - back to normal.

Again, very simple to show this to people online so they are not confused.
Also, again at no time would anyone achieve any advantage over someone who newly joined. They would just aviod being disadvantaged.

LTN Phobia

I'm not worried about it - it's not my scheme

But if people could constantly change the membership year end, where does it stop? That's when it becomes farcical. "Oh I don't like this, I may be better off with membership year ending X, let's change it to that." then a week later "Well I thought about this, no, I'd rather not, let's change it to this" etc etc.

A one-off change is one thing, but where does it stop then?

Besides, the benefits of a lower level "status" aren't that huge and they are so easy to attain. Bronze can be attained in one trip!

What's the fuss, seriously? Given the state of BA's IT it'll probably make something else more important fall over if they try to give people flexible year end date.

Which programme offers a flexible membership year end date to suit the member?

If anything, I think BA could just change it to 1 Jan - 31 Dec for everyone and be done with it. It will save people rememebring their year end date too. No extension etc - just hard and fast, same rule for everyone, and "tough if someone doesn't like it" system.

David-A

I was only envisaging them, at its simplest, to be able to reset their year on demand, to the next (or previous) 8th.

So they would only ever be ending their current year early and advancing to their next.

If it is being done on computer what is the headache, if they want to press the reset buttong every month because they like pressing buttons let them.

Now, if you are talking about them being able to make retrospective adjustments. That is something different. (It could be done fairly, and simply - subject to a rule that any acceptance of status locked things and they could not be changed after that).

[quote]Besides, the benefits of a lower level "status" aren't that huge and they are so easy to attain. Bronze can be attained in one trip!


BA! - if you have not yet joined. Otherwise, existing members are a no!

Remember that personal years have advantages over calendar years for getting defectors, etc. If someone knows BA will zero on 31st Dec, and it is September, they might well wait till next year. But by then they might have requalified, and then it is status vs non-status, etc. The moment has passed.

This is one of the many benefits of personal years, new members - regardless of when they join during the year do not think their points will go to waste.

However, it results in a situation where two people could fly the same flights, but the new member gets status and the one who gave you some business in the past does not.

Hence, I think a simple change that solves this is desirable.

I'd argue against 31st Dec, for various reasons. Even if switching to a same for all year.