Or just raise the sector requirement. The fact that I had qualified for DM and now have requalified for another year at almost both 120,000 miles and 80 sectors, shows you the number of sectors required is too low (or I guess I'm CX favorite kind of customer).

The funny part about CA Platinum is that I've talked to some people high up and they tell me there are so many of them, but they are so spread across China, you don't really see a ton of them on every flight. On CX, there have been instances where there are 50 DMs on the same flight (and many GO, SL, etc. basically everyone was a MPO member of some sort), yet on CA I rarely seem more than half a dozen on a flight (in fact on my last two flights out of Shanghai, I was the only Platinum member).

Well, on your first point, that assumes the AAdvantage member has enough miles to ticket the multiple awards. Sure, some people do, but those are usually the folks who never/seldom end up redeeming awards anyway. I am sure this phenomenon is MUCH more limited than you think.

On your second point, the release of that seat under most circumstances won't result in it being available to another partner redeemer, since it seems that most of the time there's one additional F seat for AM members than for partners. Except perhaps at the very last minute. And these seats are not being snapped up left and right. I was watching very closely a few US-HKG flights a couple of weeks ago (for flights 1-5 days out) and there were definitely F seats that remained available for hours if not days. Sure, a few may have been snapped up as well (I grabbed a RT but ended up letting the hold expire before ticketing), but anyone trying even moderately hard to get the seat would have been able to get something.

I have seen the UG list for UA be 75% of the aircraft :D
(not even including people like me that are *G that do not credit to UA.)

Maybe CX should just raise the DM requirement to something like 180,000 miles / 150 sectors since apparently it's too easy to attain to most in this thread :D

Or introduce a new tier that is above DM. The benefits of the new tier above DM would be the same as those that DM currently offers.

The benefits for DM would then be devalued.

180,000 miles? Possible, 12 round trip JFK in Y only...

But 150 sectors? That's 75 round trip Y or 50 round trip F. As a sector DM (and about 100,000 only miles) based in Hong Kong I can tell you flying 40 sectors a year is already very demanding. 50? So no flying for just two weeks in a year? And there's limited F offering by CX and KA now... (Of course F flying DM are mostly miles based flyer I guess) Not to say 75 round trip a year i.e. around there are 23 weeks in a year I need to fly two round trips a week. Are you serious?

If the DM requirement is pushed like this, I can safely assume no Hong Kong based DM can qualify by sector, and all sector based DM will be transit passenger (as the sector requirement is effectively halved). And by doing this CX helped me to make a very difficult decision: I can very happily cut my MPC and switch...

Actually 120,000 miles in 80 sectors = 1,250 miles per sector only... Flying say PEK already gives you 1,208 miles... So even a KA sector DM like me frequently doing HKG-PEK can also achieve 120,000 miles (one long haul vacation trip can fill the gap)

p.s. This year I fly HKG-PVG more so am now farther away from 120,000 miles v.s. last year...

Added:

However, one round trip JFK already gives you 16,000 miles, i.e. 8 round trips only... So maybe it's the miles requirement that should be raise? :p

Actually... There should be some minimum sector / miles requirement for miles / sector qualified DM... xHKG passengers only need 20 round trips to get qualified by sector... This is totally unfair to us HKG based sector qualified members...

Yeah, but you're assuming the furthest route. Many Taiwnese businessmen family I know does business in Shanghai or Guangzhou. Especially the Guangzhou route, they travel every weekend, that's 4 sectors, and 16 sectors a month, they get 80 after 5 months. Of course not everyone is doing it this way, but even if you travel every 2 weeks, that's 80 sectors in 10 months.

Dont give CX ideas.. 180K a year? Great for the fares now. But when they turn revenue based, its gonna be harder.

I'd rather CX limit the kind of expectations GrAAbers do.. like that AAer who got one J award for himself and 1 F award for his wife and then asked to sleep next to his wife .. and the Cabin Service manager allowed him ! :eek:

This really cheapens the product..

^^^^

At the dismay of many AA friends here, I wonder if most of the problem will be dismissed if CX gets a little tougher on AA folks. Limiting redemption, limiting reward access, limiting lounge use.... if I am CX high management I would give it a try for 6 months and see some statistical differences.

You would rather have potential revenue loss from flying empty premium cabins than AA redeemers?
(as well, lounge access is governed by OW rules...)

i understand that's the AA members' argument.

but, perhaps CX is giving up both cash fares and MPC tickets due to the current system. this must at least be a possibility right...just because something is doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal. IMO - admittedly, no doubt biased as a CX member myself - CX has gotten themselves addicted to low yielding F revenue from AA members and AA members have capitalized to the max. IME, CX needs to break the cycle because the F product is being cheapened and guys like me are putting our revenue elsewhere.

i am a reasonable example. i am absolutely voting with my wallet. This year I am flying SQ cash F on directly competing routes with CX, and have booked revenue this year to BR and EK that previously I would've given to CX. This forum has helped me tie together my issues with CX in premium cabins, particularly F and how I am being negatively affected by partner redemptions. I am still a CX Dm and consider myself fiercely loyal to CX. But....perhaps I was naive and stupid before...but I am feeling pretty dumb for spending cash on CX F and J, and accruing so loyally to MPC over the years. Especially since it seems AA members can basically hoard F inventory in advance (provided they have the miles, which shouldn't be an issue for serious frequent fliers), which is not something MPC members can do practically. This is annoying for all sorts of reasons.

Of the bigger issues, I'm tired of not being able to a.) get MPC awards, many of which are grabbed by AA guys very early, b.) how CX has incentivized AA members to book heaps of tickets in advance when we can't (no fault of AA members....CX's problem), and c.) when I pay cash, I often get a middle seat and the windows are all taken by AA award members. As a loyal CX customer, it's just annoying. So I've been voting my wallet this year. I've only spent perhaps $15k US on CX this year so far, and have spent more combined on other carriers - which would've been heresy for me a few years ago. I'm changing my habits because there are great products out there and CX F seems overwhelmed by AA members. It's a lovely product but I guess there is a psychological component - the nice guy you meet who is traveling with his family in F and tells you he booked on AA, I now know he spent 67.5k miles per person per seat, and probably had 2-3 different reservations in advance, taking inventory in the process. You're sitting there thinking...man, I'm an idiot.

CX can figure out how they want to optimize their revenue. If this continue this, that's okay I've got plenty of options to fly on and spend. It seems we're at some type of inflection point and regardless I'm keenly interested to see which way they go.

i understand that's the AA members' argument.

but, perhaps CX is giving up both cash fares and MPC tickets due to the current system. this must at least be a possibility right...just because something is doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal. IMO - admittedly, no doubt biased as a CX member myself - CX has gotten themselves addicted to low yielding F revenue from AA members and AA members have capitalized to the max. IME, CX needs to break the cycle because the F product is being cheapened and guys like me are putting our revenue elsewhere.

i am a reasonable example. i am absolutely voting with my wallet. This year I am flying SQ cash F on directly competing routes with CX, and have booked revenue this year to BR and EK that previously I would've given to CX. This forum has helped me tie together my issues with CX in premium cabins, particularly F and how I am being negatively affected by partner redemptions. I am still a CX Dm and consider myself fiercely loyal to CX. But....perhaps I was naive and stupid before...but I am feeling pretty dumb for spending cash on CX F and J, and accruing so loyally to MPC over the years. Especially since it seems AA members can basically hoard F inventory in advance (provided they have the miles, which shouldn't be an issue for serious frequent fliers), which is not something MPC members can do practically. This is annoying for all sorts of reasons.

Of the bigger issues, I'm tired of not being able to a.) get MPC awards, when at least 2 if not more seats seem occupied by AA members on every flight in F I'm taking to North America, b.) how CX has incentivized AA members to book heaps of tickets in advance when we can't (no fault of AA members....CX's problem), and c.) when I pay cash, I often get a middle seat and the windows are all taken by AA award members. As a loyal CX customer, it's just annoying. So I've been voting my wallet this year. I've only spent perhaps $15k US on CX this year so far, and have spent more combined on other carriers - which would've been heresy for me a few years ago. I'm changing my habits because there are great products out there and CX F seems overwhelmed by AA members. It's a lovely product but I guess there is a psychological component - the nice guy you meet who is traveling with his family in F and tells you he booked on AA, I now know he spent 67.5k miles per person per seat, and probably had 2-3 different reservations in advance, taking inventory in the process. You're sitting there thinking...man, I'm an idiot.

CX can figure out how they want to optimize their revenue. If this continue this, that's okay I've got plenty of options to fly on and spend. It seems we're at some type of inflection point and regardless I'm keenly interested to see which way they go.

You are making the mistake of thinking the FFP programme exists to reward your loyalty. Its exists to bring/retain customers for CX. Those non-HKG passengers have easier alternatives than flying CX, so CX needs to draw them in somehow.

I've said before but i think the best way to achieve what they want is increase the mileage threshold and increase the multiplier for the premium cabins. Something like:

SL: 50,000
GO: 100,000
DM: 200,000

F: 300%
J: 200%
Y+: 150%
Y: 100%/50% (maybe full fare Y gets 150%)

That way you reward the guys who put the big revenues your way, and rid the lounges and priority lanes of the twice a year sale fare economy lot.