Conkers

So I went through the 1800 CP mark and rang up to extend my wife's gold card status as my companion gold card recipient - she had re-qualified a month before anyway so I rang up to extend (as explained in the T&C). They refused as she had 11 months to go. Some mumbo jumbo about "only if you have a few months left will you be allowed to do this" - I quoted the T&C where there is no mention and they just said no. If this is policy then the T&C should explicitly state it.

Any views?

QRC3288

This just shows how the ship isn't just run "badly", it's worse.... it makes no sense! From a dollar and cents perspective, it is a highly profitable move for them to agree to re-up her Gold 10+ months early. Gold represents a serious forward liability of benefits to be incurred, regardless of how they account for it.

One possible conclusion from this is they really see the 1,800 CP award as being promotional in nature - I recall someone else reporting they tried to deny it for a re-up, saying it had to be new members only (essentially just making up their own T&C on the spot).

But I think reality is there are a bunch of poorly run feifdoms, and none of them work well cohesively or towards any coherent mission or goal.

I'm sorry to hear this. From a customer service perspective, it's also idiotic. 1800 CP members are presumably among the high echelon of Diamonds. Just dumb all around. But not surprising.

Conkers

Indeed - I have considered complaining, but there appears no point since they never handle complaints properly. Still my neighbour was very happy as I gave her the gold card instead!

I also asked them whether under the circumstances they would consider giving her diamond, and you can imagine the answer there as well. I think going forward I will try your strategy for over 1800 points. Thanks for the input.

ernestnywang

Just trying to think of the reason why, is there any possibility that CX does not want to get into the messy situation when your wife would have qualified GO by her own activities, or perhaps even made her way to DM, and then there would be a dispute over whether you have used this benefit and whether you can re-assign it to someone else? Perhaps CX just wants to avoid problems?

Conkers

QRC3288

I used to be blindly loyal to CX. But the last 2 years I've tried the competition and haven't looked back. I've really enjoyed JAL, Eva, EK and SQ, after mostly ignoring them for my first 5-7 years on CX. I don't know about you, but it's very easy for me to sub carriers to Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. For long-haul, not as easy if I must be in Hong Kong, but I can sometimes launch from Tokyo, Singapore and I have also tried connecting in the Middle East to Europe.

The nice thing about the other carriers is you can almost always "guarantee" your hard product. This is great for regional J and F. CX simply doesn't protect regional F, and the soft product is downright bad compared to the competition when they do offer it. Worse, on CX you could book regional F and if a swap occurs, you're landing in regional J. Probably a more-common annoyance are the subs from long-haul J to regional J, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but if you're paying out of your own pocket and this happens a few times a month, I assure the critics it sure feels like it matters. And has caused me to put revenue elsewhere.

Bottom line: if you're flying 3k + Club Points a year I'm sure you can find a way to reduce that and still get to where you need to go. It will even make your life easier to Singapore, Tokyo, etc., if you're willing to consider all the carriers instead of just CX! If I flew CX + OneWorld loyally (including going out of my way to do so), I would do 3-4k CP per year.

Practically:
I used to think 1,800 was the logical "top", but now I'm aiming for 1,600 since Mrs. QRC is making Diamond on her own anyway. (Last year when "aiming" for 1,800 I still did a bit north of 2,000, I suspect I might accidentally hit 1,800 this year as I aim for 1,600, but hitting 1,800 won't be intentional that's for sure). Sounds like 1,800 is also useless to you.

Another thing to consider is burn as many Asia Miles as possible, whenever you can. If they won't release then you buy a cash ticket. But always look for award tickets on CX first.

I've just come to the conclusion we care about them a lot more than they care about us, despite us paying a lot of money into their pockets. It's like Stockholm Syndrome. I'd just put revenues elsewhere. I don't have to deal with the problem of "What if I don't make Diamond?", since I fly so much, and it sounds like you're in the same boat. My "problem" is figuring out how to reduce my reliance on CX.

Conkers

QRC3288

Obviously, it depends on your personality, and the class you're flying. But another part is "getting over the mental hump" as crazy as this sounds, given I presume you're another working professional. But that hump is the weird psychological pressure we put on ourselves thinking elite status is super important. Elite status is a weird drug!

I will say, if you're flying mostly J and F class then there is really nothing to worry about. Flying EK and SQ in particular has made me realize how weird CX is. It's like the Asia Miles call center - they abuse everyone else via long wait times that we're "lucky" as Diamonds to be able to reach agents quickly. (Most other carriers I deal with as zero or lower status, I don't receive this punishment that Asia Miles and Green members get, waiting 60+ minutes for an agent). Until recently I was a nothing on EK or SQ, and my treatment on board when I had no status was.....not a whole lot different from my treatment on CX! Even better in some cases, as an EK zero than as a Cathay Diamond. I'm lucky enough to only be "stuck" flying F on EK, and J+F on SQ so I can't speak for economy class. But I can say their regular service towards me as a lower or non-elite has been superb and made me reflect on my own mentality valuing Diamond so heavily.

I appreciate CX's lounges, but I appreciate them a lot less given how much a whack the soft product has taken. This is not just someone randomly speaking on FT who doesn't engage with these products often...I had weeks where I visited HKG departure lounges 4 out of the 7 days of the weeks, with once being a given and twice being fairly normal too. I found myself desiring more and more soft product the more frequent visitor I became. While a base level of hard product is necessary, and Cathay has done this very nicely with the new lounges, I'm really disappointed in CX's move across the board and time to continually cut costs on the soft product. It sucks, no other way to say it! I get it, soft product is the lowest visibility cuts, don't make headlines, CX blew $4bn on fuel bets and the whole needs to be made up somehow, and soft product small cuts are easy to rationalize piece by piece. But I've noticed.

As a result, I don't miss the lounges much now; the free restaurant, as I now call it in mind these days, is impaired due to downright bad quality food and friendly but totally clueless / indifferent service. It's just a free restaurant with industrial catering ingredients, a lot of it made on a production line. In the event I have no choice, I just grab some fruit or yogurt from the fridge and leave. I'm certainly not going to starve so it's not a huge problem in the real world scheme of things! But it does cause me to divert revenues. For example, I've recently taken EK and SQ F flights ex-HKG. You get significant service on board with decent quality ingredients, plus abundance of choice (aka they haven't just loaded one or two of something) so you really don't have to "worry" as much about eating in the lounge prior to flight. CX has just made eating in the lounge that much more important because the food is limited and pretty gross on board. And they're cutting in the lounge too.

This has turned into a rant, because I m in a similar boat as you are. But I'm amazed at how indifferently and stupidly they're treating your situation. they are missing the big picture here. you add up enough guys who spend 20k+ USD, 40k, 80k a year and to starts to make a real difference in your yield

Conkers