Unexpected upgrade to MPC Silver
 

My wife stopped flying regularly since giving birth to our daughter 18 months ago, or more accurately, it was from several months before that. So over the past two years she has been a Green.

In the past three months though she has flown HKG-LHR RTN in paid J and a one-way J to DXB, all three sectors on CX. As of last month she was on ~20k club miles.

Today, totally unexpectedly, a Silver card came through the post. I logged on into her account and noticed it was reset on 13th July, 10 days after my DM membership was renewed. The thing I am most happy about is that both our membership cycle dates are now the same - unless she makes Gold of course, which she won't.

Any suggestions as to why she was upgraded to Silver prematurely? I don't want to call MPO and alert them of a possible error... :D

One other clue: She has successfully applied and received the new CX Amex.

Hi,
Its because of the Amex CX card.

Eh? Why is it because of the Amex card?

Im guessing because my gf got a silver card in the mail as well after she successfully applied to the cx amex card and she has flown dxb-hk-lax round trip in J once in feb and she is not even mpc green.

More clues
 

This is from the letter accompanying the card...

The rest are about benefits etc.

Doesn't this look like a further devaluation of Macro Polo Club? What is the attraction of more crowded lounges, more people in the queue for upgrades?:td:

I think they do keep track of the actual revenue and use this as an unofficial/unpublished criteria for membership tier upgrade. afterall, although it's just 20k Club miles, but HKG-LHR-HKG J and HKG-DXB J is at least some HKD 60-70k already ? which is quite a bit more than many other all-economy flyers who did 30k or 60k Club miles...even if she really just flies these 3 sectors once a year, it makes sense for CX to retain this infrequent J pax...

and frankly since, at least in this case, they probably have found the pax is flying J regularly anyway, there's really no additional "cost" to CX in giving her Silver...she has lounge access, business class check-in, etc anyway...and CX isn't even giving elite tier bonus...so really not too much cost to CX. (but, of course, not that I agree CX should give out MPO status too easily)

Excellent analysis! ^

My wife does most of her CX/KA travel with me now that she doesn't work, so apart from the extra 10kg luggage she won't really gain much from this upgrade. Though it can useful if she ever does travel by herself.

Couldn't agree more... :(

To get these people loyal to CX and hope that they will climb up the ladder.

Just a question thats related to the topic, I recently applied and subsequently received the AMEX CX Black card..but i'm already silver, am short about 1 sector to Gold...any chance there may be something in the mail for me? I have been flying in CX/KA J for about 8 sectors now...I don't want to sound like i'm asking for something i don't deserve but after my return trip, I'll be 1 sector away from Gold..and have no plans on traveling before my expiry date...

b950022, how many club miles are you short of Gold?

quite a lot..14,079 to be specific, but i thats because i do a lot of short haul flights thou..

So you have 39 club sectors at present?

Just my two cents with my experience as a Silver member and it happened last year (that translates way before the CX-AMEX card announced, and at that time I was only a AM member, not even green MPO).

I agree with tedhl that they do keep track of their revenue. As soon as I reached about 30,000 AMs (also qualified as club miles) last year, a silver MPO card appeared in my mailbox. That year I flew about two trans-pac and some short-haul between Asia, all on Y. I was once wondering about how did it happen that I did not even apply as a MPO member (that $50 enrollment fee is a joke to me, so I have always preferred SQ over CX until I was based in LAX.) So I think both the revenue sharing and the AMEX-CX card analysis are valid, depends on what your case/situation is.

currently 37.75 club sectors... my return flight is a J so i'd be at 39 at that point, you are right.. why do you ask? do you have any ideas?