Tier upgrade
 

I have 119100 mile now, I will fly HKG/BBK next week in Biz, I should get enough 120000 miles after the out-bound flight, anyone can tell me if I will get the diamond tier on my return flight? Will they send me the diamond card this month? My gold membership year till November.

Thank you!

In principle, yes you will be recognised as Diamond on the way back, although it might not happen if you are simply doing a mileage run and transiting BKK. In any case the only difference is that you can use the first class lounge at BKK, which isn't worth getting too excited about.

Christep,

CX's First Class lounge in BKK is probably the best lounge available. Beats TG, SQ and other airline lounges by any standard.

As for your Diamond tier status recognition, don't expect to receive such recognition immediately. If you want to rush your status upgrade, I suggest that you call The Marco Polo Club service centre and get them to do a retrocredit for your HKG-BKK before you depart from BKK to HKG. Ask them if you could get them to upgrade your tier status from Gold to Diamond so that you can utilise your benefits on your return flight.

My simple theory is: If you don't ask, you don't get it. Therefore, it does not cost you to ask for a favour! Bear this in mind as it is a useful tactic if you want something done.

I think you will enjoy the vast benefits of Diamond card membership from The Marco Polo Club. It is a great program allowing members to utilise their Business Class lounge when flying on other airlines. This goes to show that CX really cares for your loyalty.

I personally have enjoyed Cathay Pacific for the last 8 years I have been flying with them. I rank them as one of the best in the world for its product and service innovations.

SQ comes second as I find their lounge product in SQ not up to the standard of CX in HKG. Also, I find their cabin crew to be too robotic and I blame their management for this. Other than that, SQ offers a good product but wish if they can fix a few problems with the new Business Class product which looks like a BabyPram.

A close 3rd is Emirates and then British Airways and Virgin Atlantic for their product innovations in premium cabins. EK needs to improve its First and Business Class but has a good Economy Class product.

Overall, we have 5 to 6 really quality driven airlines but two are based in Asia - CX and SQ. Well Done!

Do they pay you to write this stuff?

None of the lounges that I have been to in BKK is brilliant. The difference between the CX business class (which britra already has access to) and the first class is not great.

If CX really cared for my loyalty they wouldn't give me less than half the miles I get from AAdvantage for the same flights (largely in business class). This is far more valuable than being able to use CX's business class lounge when I am flying on another airline.

I use CX because their inflight service is the best. But the Marco Polo Club is one of the weakest loyalty clubs out there.

Christep,

No, nobody pays me to comment on this forum. It is my personal opinion and I am entitled to it. If you have a problem then ignore it and move on.

As for The Marco Polo Club, you cannot make direct comparison to that of American Airlines' AAdvantage as AA is US based loyalty programme where every man and its dog is after your business. In Asia, airline's frequent flyer programme are not as generous as firstly, the programmes are much newer than their counterparts in US and secondly, if you compare CX and SQ programmes, I am sure you will find the CX Asia Miles far better than SQ's. One must appreciate where they are based when commenting on loyalty programmes.

It is not fair to say that CX's Marco Polo Club and Asia Miles are their weakest points as they provide the essentials that Asian customers come to expect. On the other hand, US customers are being spoilt by their airlines by giving away complimentary upgrades plus a host of other benefits that one may not get from Asian based airlines. Why? Simple - those programmes have been around for decades and have become very competitive so one has to provide extra or match other competitors product and service offering inorder to remain loyal to a particular brand/company.

In Asia, we have a small slection of quality players and you will find that many customers belong to both CX Marco Polo Club/Asia Miles and SQ PPS CLub/KrisFlyer. You will never see complimentary upgrade certificates with SQ and CX as they are so worried about the yield that such vocab does not exist in their books. That is why airlines such as SQ and CX are consistently profitable than those of their US counterparts. Simply because they are managing their yields better and not giving away free upgrades.

I sometimes wonder how airlines such as AA and AC can afford to give away free J class seats away through upgrade certificates. Do they understand the concept of yield management and how this affects the bottom line of a company. If they don't then I would strongly recommend that they undertake some basic course in learning the fundamentals of managing their yield.

I hope I have made my case clear by illustrating the difference between the Asian and US frequent flyer schemes. One should not compare the likes of SQ and CX with that of US carriers as the Asia airlines are in a different stage in the product life cycle compared to those of US airlines.

I think programmes such as SQ and CX can only improve and for all I can say, I think CX offers a good set of benefits that are not directly available through AA's programme. For example, if you are a Diamond card member of Marco Polo Club, you are able to access their Business Class lounge if you are travelling on another airline. Also, Marco Polo Club allows members to access their Business Class lounges by attaining Silver Level membership which requires 30,000 miles on Cathay Pacific and/or oneworld partners in a 12 month cycle. To me, this is not a bad deal. Where on earth can you get this! For example, to attain Star Gold status on Air Canada's Aeroplan scheme, you will require 35,000 miles so therefore, you get a 5,000 miles discount at CX and get lounge access when flying CX operated flights. And best of all, you get a great inflight service product that Air Canada could not match. Where would I take my business - it is simple - the answer is Cathay Pacific.

I hope this example provides a good overview on why CX represents a good value in terms of benefits that a member gains from basic elite membership.

Not only can you make direct comparison, in fact you should. When you fly CX you have the option of selecting which FFP to credit your miles to. So it is not only valid but also smart to compare the benefits of AM vs. AA. Without question AA offers more miles earned for a given flight than AM. AFAIK, AM's only advantages are upgrade awards on non-full fare economy tickets (plus lounge access which presumably you already have anyway if you're elite). The real benefit of accruing AM miles is not even with the AM program itself but with CX Marco Polo loyalty program. The guaranteed seat reservation is one of these benefits along with higher op upgrade priority. That's about it! Now if only CX allows miles accrual on AA and loyalty accrual on MPC, then that would be great.

In a global competitive marketplace, customers do not make distinctions among products based on where they are in their life cycle. Given choices customers will choose the product that provides them the best value proposition. The fact that SQ and CX's FFPs pale in comparison to US-based FFPs simply reflect the lack of "buying power" that their customers have. So if I were Asia based and have to make do with CX and SQ's anemic programs, I wouldn't be justifying it but rather writing to them and expressing disappointment.

Both NH and JL offer 100% bonus miles to their mid-tier and 125% to their top-tier elites. I think they are Asian carriers.

i thot, overall, we have "2" really quality..........

My renewal date is 30Nov. I have 6K+ miles to go before I hit diamond. I have a flight to YYZ this weekend.

MPO has advised me although I will qualify for Diamond prior to my renewal date, my membership renewal year would remain at 30Nov though my status will change automatically.

However even if I am to earn more than 120K status miles (say 150K) till 30Nov, once it passes to Dec 1, my loyaty (status) miles zero's down. Along with the extra 30K status miles. (Award miles of course stays with Asiamiles).

So it's kind of stupid to aim for Diamond so soon as I have more flights to take between now and end of Nov. MPO is losing out this way as I credit my flight miles to other FF programmes and will aim for exactly 6K+ miles only just prior to my renewal date just to qualify.

PLEASE MPO - do something to entice us to credit miles to MPO and not somewhere else!

Guy Betsy,

Do you ever stop complaining about MPO. If you are not happy then join either BA, QF, AA, EI, Lan Chile, IB frequent flyer programme.

I think you are know as a complaining king within CX. I think it is time to shape up or ship out.

I used to remember how you used to get so p***ed about Marco Polo Club for outsourcing its service centre to PCCW. What is your problem with that? Face it, many organisations use outsourcing and it is a good way to employ a large bulk of staff and at the same time save costs.

Oh, you are invited by CX management for Dim Sum at their head office so the managers of Marco Polo Club can get to know you better. Please let me know if you can attend. They would love to see you.

[This message has been edited by oneworld Fan (edited 09-11-2002).]

Bad blood between Guy Betsy and oneworld Fan? I think so. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

GB,

it has been possible to reset the MPO counter once you reached Diamond (new tier in general), and you new membership year counter starts.
try call back for a new agent, or ask for teh supervisor.

oneworld fan, I may disagree with guy betsy on a number of issues but he has a very valid point here. What is the incentive for someone in that situation to keep building on something that will be taken away and not considered? There is none and something should be done to change this.

Oneworld Fan:

I do not have the same impression about GB as you do. I do not feel he is "complaining" about meaningless point, as the issues he raise are encountered by other elite members here as well. He's just voicing his opinion which many of us hold. (well, maybe not you...) Oh, and if you DO have a chance to attend Dim Sum with CX management, can you pass the words for us? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

-+-+

Pegasus:

You mentioned about resetting the club miles counter, but can you SPECIFICALLY request to have your counter & membership date reset at your will? For example, my membership expire in Dec. 31st 02, and I've already RE-qualifed for silver long ago. BUT, if I will fly another 20k+ miles during this Xmas, it makes more sense for me to have my membership reset to Nov.31st 02, so that I can start my new status accumulation, so that I will be 2/3 of my way to silver for another year starting in Nov. 03. (since extra 20K in Xmas 02 won't qualify me for Gold anyways). Any comments on this?

I guess one of the reasons they won't do it is because of the hassle/cost of reissuing membership cards which have expiry dates on them.

IMO CX only need to do two things to make MPO competitive:

1. Make permanent the elite tier bonuses which they had as a promotion for Sept 2001 to Mar 2002. I know this was only for flights on CX, not the whole of OneWorld, but I think I could live with that. (It was 25% for Silver, 50% for Gold and 100% for Diamond.)

2. Either reintroduce some sort of lifetime status, or do what KLM (used to?) do which is only deduct the number of Club points/miles needed to requalify at each renewal, not reset to zero.

Then everything would be fine.