Just because there's advancements in technology, it doesn't necessarily mean better outcomes for the customer.

I've just tried skiing in my home state (NSW). I haven't done this since my uni years.
I realised what a fool I was.
I was penalised multiple times for not booking the connection bus the day before online/the ski pass the day before online/ski rentals the day before online. I really thought I was a 来都来了 sucker for the Chinese male prostitute a few months back.

Similarly (those who've been around knows my interest in credit card promos Credit card Asia Miles earning opportunities (HK) 2022 onwards )

1. I would love for HK banks to allow third party spend tracking so I know when I am approaching a promotion spend cap or not yet reached a promotion spend floor. Would the HK banks' like CCB allow a API? Dream on...
(there was a proposal from 2018 https://www.hkma.gov.hk/eng/key-func...anking-sector/ - but it was just that. It's not mandatory adoption)

2. Lots of banks are trying to limit their promotion outlay by MCC restrictions now.
There was a Visa MCC lookup tool during the pandemic http://www.visa.com/supplierlocator-...pplier-locator . Most useful thing ever.
Of course it was too good to last and Visa took it away 6 months' after release https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards...ooking_up_mcc/ and https://www.uscardforum.com/t/topic/51723

For those who bleat "AI is the future/AI will revolutionise everything/AI will change ..." I ask - how are we supposed to get our hands on the info to feed AI? Can AI model information withheld by parties we're forced to work with?

My missus now analogises my pursuit of status without organic earn with how Chiikawa critters (specifically, Mononga) pursue free food.

@OP how many SP did you earn, & how many were you expecting to earn?
The screenshot above stipulates your deserved share of SPs

Toggle in the three bar icon on the top left corner (both desktop or mobile)

Introducing Dark Mode!

(Edited 5pm) Not particularly customer friendly.
In fact, I will analogise it to QR/AY unbundling lounge from Business.

AY/QR Business Lite
Previous practice: Business means lounge
New Enhanced (Elevated) practice: Business means seat only - buy lounge separately (and in outports, not particularly easy to add on)

CX Light/Essential/Flex
Previous practice: fare buckets reflect demand, but higher fare buckets get better status earn and booking benefits e.g. free cancel
New Enhanced (Elevated) practice: fare buckets reflect demand, but booking benefits are unbundled. Also if you care about status earn, you're going to put in more work/$$$ to ensure you end up in the correct fare code (with the additional fare not necessarily yielding booking benefits)

If the concern is Status Points earned, each fare shows AM & SP for that specific fare type.

I can�t read some of your text. What�s with the font color change? - Not sure where went wrong it looks all good on my side.

What�s the purpose for subdividing all the fare classes? - Optimize revenue of course. The assumption is that the mass majority of customers are price sensitive (especially in Y cabin). As the airline operator, you definitely don't want scare away potential customers by not display the most attractive discounted economy ticket when 90 pct of the seats are still empty.
Yes, you can argue CX should display all 9 options I listed, but what motives to do so? 1. Not everyone has the patience or cares enough to choose which ticket is to their benefits, too much information is not generally good for locking in tickets; 2. Why risk exposing subclass inventories?

They already optimise revenue by class of travel and unbundling of rebooking options.

Hiding the fare code seems like cost avoidance ie CX is trying to get away with paying for status benefits (or incurring its own)

Not revenue optimisation IMO, as they aren�t keen to make it easy for people to pay for it.

Consumers now have to be extremely careful these days when they want to do mileage upgrades from Y (amongst other things like increased miles).

In the past, if your Y fare class was M or above, you'd be eligible of mileage upgrade. These days you've actually got to pay attention to whether your fare is considered "Econ Light", "Econ Essential", or "Econ Flex". Only the latter two are eligible for mileage upgrades.

Nowadays, sometimes M is considered "Econ Essential", and sometimes it's considered "Econ Light". One can easily be fooled into thinking they are eligible for a mileage upgrade when buying M-class when in reality they are being booked into "Econ Light" which isn't eligible. So my take is instead of being fixated on what the exact fare-class is, perhaps it might be better to focus on whether you're booking Light, Essential or Flex instead.

This change in fare class presentation took me a while to get adjusted at first, but I can't quite say it's a bad thing now. These names seem easier to remember than the fare class codes if you aren't familiar with them.

Same concept applies to Y+ and J.

I don't think that's true - but maybe I have misinterpreted what you wrote.

If there is availability in the "S" bucket, it can be sold in any of the three "flavours" lite, essential and flex.

Once the "S" bucket is exhausted, the system will then only offer the next-cheapest economy bucket - which again can be sold in any of the three "flavours" lite, essential and flex.

It is not the case that they must sell a defined number of S lite AND a defined number of S essential AND a defined number of S flex tickets; there is ony one bucket for "S", and if there is availability in that bucket, each available "S" seat can be sold as any of lite, essential or flex.

For example, if a particular flight allows 22 seats to be sold in "S", then any of the following are possible:
22 "S" lite tickets
15 "S" lite tickets, 5 "S" essential tickets, 2 "S" flex tickets
...or any othe combination of the three "flavours" until the allocation of 22 "S" seats has been exhausted for that flight

I rather characterise the current CX system as unbundling the fare class with the associated booking benefits:

- the fare class is availability driven. You can only override thru TA (can you override by contacting Global Contact Centre?)
- Light/Essential/Flex defines what cancellation/rebooking/reissue/upgrade conditions you get

Yes, chase for SL and then gold. I actually had SL for some time before the downgrade as it�s too much to reach Gold. Under the new format, it should be easier for the underprivileged travelers to reach gold lol.
It feels quite nice to get lounge access and noodles when you can�t afford to fly business class. I wish I had that much income. Maybe in the future haha.
I�ll be a peasant for the time being.

Thank you for the chart, it�s very informative and useful.

very interesting. Maybe I�ll look into this next time.
multiple tickets, multiple ppl chasing status right now. Tricky situation to go through.

I earned 45 less SP. And I booked economy flex too. It wasn�t a cheap economy ticket. Obviously it�s not as pricey as PEY or Biz but to lose 45 SP is frustrating and disappointing.

when you mean new enhanced (elevated) practice, are you referring to the new membership program?