Of course. Even 90% is not ALL.

But if you look at another threat about MR, there is evidence that people DO fly CX because of this.

Why CX needs to be a follower and be like another airlines? The distinct things about CX now, they give good benefit even for lowly SL.

How many regular flyers actually know what a MR is? Majority of the passengers aren't hardcore like FTers are.

The same reason why CX is not installing angle flat seats in PY cabin. Who doesn't want a better seat but the economics don't work out. If cost saving from decease in SL benefit can more than offsets the decrease in revenue from SL in the long term, I don't see why CX shouldn't do it. In fact, a few of those SL may be inspired to fly more just to get to GO, and also CX can even focus its resources to provide better experience for higher tier members too.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)

How many can cx actually save by implementibg this to silvers

You still does not get the point.

Of course there will be people who will take CX because of other reasons (such as cheaper price, better timing etc).

Of course, there are some other people who even make a MR to keep MPC SL and stick with CX.

To me, the first type of passengers probably do not even care. Some probably does not even have FF. Even if the flight get miles or not, you really think they will care?

Those care, will very likely also care if CX gives lounge access to SL.

There will be some impact to CX. How much? I guess this number will be hard to judge, but I bet there is quite some sizable number. Will that have big impact to CX? I have no idea.

Personally, I do not see how CX will save money by limiting access for SL, as lounge is basically fixed cost. Well not sure about contract lounge - but I still bet the cost saving probably far less and the revenue lost by pissing off some segments of customers.

You are making the big assumption that majority of SL cares which is pure speculation. Even CX doesn't know for sure and that's the whole point of having a survey. No doubt there will be some among those who cares will stop flying CX, but some will simply bank the miles on other FFPs and continue to fly with CX. But saying all 5,000 SL from North America will stop spending a dime on CX is simply unrealistic.

Between big companies usually have travel policy and contracts in place which might give one very little choice unless you are people higher up (but then you don't care about lounge access as you will be flying in J). Most of my co-workers simply don't care and let the admin handles the booking.

We don't have the data on cost but CX has it and someone probably did the calculation too. So go figure.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)

So you have agreed that cutting lounges for SL users is unsubstatiated for the finances of cathay since flyers wouldnt give a dump.

So cx needs not make these cuts.

no, I did not say that.

I think you did not get the point. In politics, people often complain the loudest are in fact the tiny minority. The majority doesn't care.

In this sense, when CX changes its policy, or is going to change the policy, politic comes in. And, guess who will make the most complain? The MR crowed or so-called FTers, not that they travel very much, otherwise won't be silver forever.

If we cite a IHG 2004 survey, among its FFP, 32% are Sherlock who only wants the best deal and could not care less which programme they belong to; and 6% are 'Slackers' who want a easy programme with immediately perks. Among 6 category IHG had identified FFP members, I think 'Slackers' is the best to describe the current silver members who may feel their rights being squeezed if lounge rules are to be changed.. i.e. They won't do MR to achieve higher status, they choose MPC due to immediate lounge access and fast track boarding etc.

So if IHG's survey stands any good data point, we are talking about 6% of the overall MPC members who chose MPC for the immediate benefits. And among the 6%, which contains Green members and Silver Members and above, we are talking about less than 0.5% (overall) are silver members.

However, not all those people would leave CX. Because majority are indifferent in 'Slackers' category. Only the 'Snobs' would feel the most. And that is 11% of people are snobs that they value their perks. Thus we are looking at 0.055% of the members who would feel strongly if CX is to change rules. How many would protest by leaving CX or fly less? Take a guess, as I won't have a clue. My best guess is less than 0.000005%.

So the point is, MPC must have their math done and realise loosing a handful silver members won't affect their bottom line. My advice is, if CX is to change its silver MPC member benefits, get on with it. Life is better shared. Life is also better when it suits you. If it no longer suits you, find something else or somewhere else that suits you. ;)

And your assertion that not many people care isn't a big assumption? Although my empirical sample is very small, but everyone I know that hold on to CX SL do so solely on the fact that they get lounge access.

Again, your claim about the opposite is realistic, other people's argument isn't realistic, although you admit no one knows for sure.

As for people "continue to fly with CX", how? If I have AA and I want to fly CX I need to get Y, B, H fares to bank miles to AA. Yeah right.


Oh yes, CX always make the right decisions right? I'm sure the coffin-J the CX had "somebody that did the calculations", I'm sure the non-recline-Y CX had people did the calculations. Just because a corporation has people that do the calculations doesn't mean their calculations always reflects reality.

Some people are acting like CX has a superb SL benefits. Besides Lounge access what makes CX SL superior to AA GO? Not much. AA GO even gives fliers 25% bonus miles, you need to fly CX J to get 25% bonus miles. AA you can redeem 8000+ miles distance Y round-trip at only 60K points/miles, CX you needed 90K miles. Other benefits are comparable. Forget it, take away lounge (or make it meaningless by throwing 4 coupons per year at them), and CX will lose people.

Which is why even CX admits their PEY isn't selling as they estimated, guess some people at CX didn't do their calculations right huh?

Make good seats and it sells more (see CX J, Y), make bad seats and it sells less (see CX Y+), sounds like good economics to me.

Here's another idea, increase the value of your product to make people willing to pay more for it, and increases demand. Rather then cut costs and hope that the cost you cut exceeds the revenue you lost. Moving backwards isn't going forward. How many major corporations have died because of this insane pursue to "cut costs" that they ended up cutting their loyal customers? (Circuit City comes to mind.)

There is a reason SL stays SL, they don't have a need to fly more.

Wrong again. Once a corporation's mission is to cut expenses, it's going to be across the board. They won't cut benefits of lower tiers to move resources to higher tiers.

This is great analysis. Lounge access is primarily a fixed cost. Unless CX thinks all SL members eat and drink like pigs when using their lounge. I really can't imagine how much CX "saves" by cutting lounge benefit at the risk of losing flyers. Even if it's the outports, say $15-$20 a pop, why would CX want to risk saving $20 lounge use at the risk of losing $1500-$2000 plane ticket revenue?

Your claim is simply unrealistic because you said ALL 5,000 SL in North America will stop spending a dime on CX ticket which I believe we can all agree this is probably not true. If that's the case, CX doesn't even need to do the survey to determine how this will affect their demand.

Funny that you were the one who kept saying how you paid full Y fares to fly to China on CX (on company's dime) and now you said not a chance you will buy higher fare class?

Didn't say CX always make the right decision but calculating the cost on providing SL lounge access rather simple especially for the outports without a CX operated lounge.