Inter level treatment..
 

Done a bit of searching but sorry if I missed it, please just direct me.

Do we know how inter levels are looked at with regards upgrades and opup's etc.? Not all GO (or DM) are created or stay equal for long so how does Cathay differentiate... based on time of being gold membership, mile count at that point in time, total miles earned throughout each of GO own year?

As an example, my first year flying CX so getting to DM the hard way this year.. at GO with 80k but taking into account my 30 and 60 resets already, I'm at 170k for last 6 months.. Where do you think I would rank in a GO opup's battle?

This is likely all moot for me anyway as I only fly J and seems like F upgrades are very rare but thought it an interesting Q especially for those GO that fly J.

Thanks!

There is this sticky thingy up at the top of the forum...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...on-thread.html

Right, full of information and shows clearly the rankings but my question was is CX simply taking all GO and D at equal value with no inter level analytic workings in play during desicons such as opup's/upgrades.

The information is in there. Some say its BN number. So to answer your question, how long you have been a GO makes no difference (or at least no evidence to suggest it) to a 10 year running GO.

Please take a look at the thread again.

For DM, CX created DMP several years ago. It is given to the top 1% by revenue, not by miles, of the DMs. There are about 100-200 DMP members worldwide. There are also IN or other VIPs who may get priority over a DM member.

For GO, I am not aware of anything, but it is always possible. CX can change their internal rules anytime. I am also uncertain whether a Cargo Clan member has priority over a GO member.

I think OP is asking about same level vs same level as in:

GO vs GO
DM vs DM
DM+ vs DM+

I consider DM and DM+ as different levels..

As CX invites DM+ by revenue and not by miles, a member with 300K Club Miles in a year may not be DM+ while one with 150K Club Miles can be. The qualification is not a fixed one. So it can be viewed as a totally different level or an elite group within DM. In any case, there is no GO+ and we are not aware that miles makes a difference in op-up.

There's not a lot of evidence to suggest that CX looks at a "CIP" type score when it comes to op-ups, but we will never know without an insider letting us know this.

However, I had an interesting experience when I first joined Marco Polo Club. I was a silver and had done a number of J class HKG-LAX runs in quick succession. I was op-up'd to F class on one of the HKG-LAX legs and I was really surprised as I would have expected there to be Diamonds and Golds ahead of me. It made me think that CX could see my pattern of travel ("revenue earning velocity") and wanted to encourage me to continue flying with CX.

CX has a way of tracking revenue flown against name and is not based on your MPC status.

In the 2000s, I had flown on CX in J/F on more than a few times but all my miles were credited to AA. But yet one day the ISM commented that I was one of their CIP because of my flight patterns. The ISM said that there is a way CX knows who pays and who flies for free based on the name. I have been OPup'd to F where I have usually been the only passenger and the J cabin is not even full.

Its not impossible. SQ's reservation system for example tracks name and appends KF/PPS numbers automatically once the transaction ends where no PPS/FQTV info is added in the beginning. CX uses a similar formula I think.

Sounds about right, I've convinced my dad to dumped CI and joined CX last year and he's since been traveling around the world with CX J intensively, and he told me he got upgraded to F a couple of times not even with a full J cabin. So CX definitely is telling him that they appreciate his frequent J business and wants him back for more.

By the way, after CX, his comment to me was: "f---, that is what I've been missing all these years flying with s--- CI?"

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

As stated in the sticky BP# is the general belief on this but I personally (primarily because of amount of business I've started to give them) would like to believe CX is more advanced in there flyer segmentation/analysis dept when it comes to giving out anything.

The feedback given above leans to them being so which is nice to hear.

This is purely my empirical experiences, but I found that if there is Full cabin, low BP with DM = automatic upgrade. Full cabin, mid-high BP, DM = sometimes upgrade. so for me at least empirically, low BP makes a difference

On the Q of upgrades, my experience for the past 10 years (half of it as DM, half as GO) is that op ups are getting rarer, especially when you fly J already. There are a lot of CX DMs so your Q is a good one and one to which I think the answer is that they do have a differentiation system. I remember flying on a HK - ICN flight a while ago and in J, half were DM members with 1 or 2 DM+ (peeked at the drinks trolley chart). Still they approached the DM+ first for his food choice and then moved to the rest of the J group. With the 747s being retired and less F class config planes, op ups aren't really going to be the positive if you fly J constantly.

On the DM differentiation question, I'm torn on this. On the one hand, this rewards the high value pax as opposed to those who qualify through cheap MRs but then would it not make sense to create another tier and let people aim for it as opposed to a opaque discretionary system. If not done quickly, this could annoy other DMs who think they should get the same but do not. And it is strange CX refuses to publicly acknowledge DM+ when most savvy DMs know about it.

Just my 2 cents FWIW. Thanks for your patience with my rambling rant. :p

One more point to ponder .... does DM perception affect your chance for mileage milestone, birthday and anniversary upgrades? Seems to be the case as some get a lot of it and some not (sadly in the latter case) even though everyone is DM. Hmmmmm ....

Here's my 2 cents.

I have no doubt CX tracks revenue within the tiers, and particularly DM. I've been a DM for 6 years now, but my spending habits have varied within that period. Anecdotally it seems like I get reached out to more by CX, get invited to more DM club events, score more "V" upgrades on my boarding pass, been seated in the F cabin regionally when I'm been ticketed in Y class on multiple occasions despite Y not being oversold (yes, it happens), etc. when I spent more. I had a year when my spending patterns sharply decreased and I felt like the extra attention declined, although this very easily could me just imagining something.

However, you're talking about the "I" (involuntary) printed on your boarding pass upgrades....aka op-ups. Throughout my years I have not seen much variance as to how these are achieved, including in my first year when I did ~250k miles in a calendar year flying expensive tickets - full-fare Y regionally, and full-fare J and F long-haul 1-2x monthly. Like you, I did those 250k ramping through the different tiers GR, SL, reset, GO, reset, DM. During that period I was not contacted at all by CX until I hit DM.

I was, however ramping during an extraordinary financial markets bonanza in Asia (2007) and hit DM right as markets collapsed (2008), so these factors may have been the driving force behind CX not caring much about my spending in 2007-early 2008, versus what seemed like an onslaught of attention in late 2008-2009.

I think you're looking for special revenue-department attention. While this is real, to hope it will be applied to op-ups regularly - especially in the case of a GO member, which indicates just a brief period of loyalty to CX - is most likely fantasy. There are just way too many flights per day, overselling is a standard practice in the industry and there are probably thousands of op-ups daily on CX every single day, and it's probably not feasible to assume CX will have a tried-and-true way to automatically op-up in the perfect, who-gave-me-the-most-revenue-in-the-last-3-months manner. Tier level is good enough. If you really are crushing revenue, eventually you'll get flagged and/or reach DM+.