reduced requal requirements
 

seems like CX is starting to lower requal criteria given the much lower demand...

my uncle who's been CX Gold for many years (at least the past 5+ consecutive years I think?) - has 3 more months in his current membership year (until end Jul), but he has only ~30k miles / 25 sectors as of now (vs. 60k miles / 40 sectors required).

CX just wrote him and has lowered his requal requirements to 51k miles or 34 sectors, i.e. exactly 15% lower.

sounds like the right thing to do for members who have shown long-term loyalty or have exceeded the threshold by a big margin the past year or two, given the current economic situation.

just hope they won't do it too broadly as I would hate to compete for op-up with lots of "DM-lite"... :) (as, selfishly, I personally "only" need another 35k miles in the next 10 months to renew my DM)

Well they never lowered my requirement - In feb I was short 40k miles to DM...yes I know a long way short, but hey....

15% lower for DM would be 102K.@:-)

At beginning of April I received a rather pompous letter from the new MPC manager "reminding" me that I have a long way to go to reach 120K to renew my Diamond status and I had better get flying.
No "thank you" for sticking it out with CX (I have 90K already racked up) nor even a mention that there might be some factors at work in the world as to why I was not flying so much.
Total ostrich syndrome.
BTW. I have planned out trips and will just make threshold by midsummer renewal deadline.
the attitude of the letter "sucked" as the kids say.

I got the same letter. also thought it was pretty obnoxious.

Yea, I agree here with the DM-lite...selfish thing as well when you rack up 60k with 11 mos to renew

As for the letter others refer to (colleague got it, I agree it was obnoxious), doesn't surprise me at all. CX mgmt seems completely oblivious when it comes to dealing with customers..not even necessary to grant the status, but letter could have had a better touch. It's the little (easy and free) things they always get completely wrong.

So in view of current offers to renew certain levels at reduced rate are they going to let golds hit Diamond at a new lower rate any time soon do you think ?

Giving the amount of whinging there has been about too many Diamonds since the integration of KA, I guess the "old school CX Diamonds" would say no!

Provided that they "soft land" Diamonds to Gold even if they don't do 60K miles then it's only one year down a tier if they are going to start travelling again, which mightn't be a bad thing just to remind people how good Diamond actually is (I got quite blase about it after 7 years, but I now really miss the F lounge and the op-ups).

I have to say I find all of this confusing. One minute, flyers are being reminded that they are in danger of not meeting their tier level, others are knocked back requesting 5,000 km grace while Golds are allowed to renew at 48,000.

Does this mean that Silvers can qualify for Gold at 48,000?

I think there's a difference between requalifying for your current level at a lower rate vs getting upgraded at a lower rate.

From Cathay Boy's experience, I think CX will never upgrade you to the next level unless you really do fly those actual club miles at least once. Once you are at that level they might be lenient in requalifying - in the past by extending your member year, and recently it seems by giving a requalification discount.

That makes some sense. However, what about the DM's who had flown the miles needed presumably at least once who were sent a letter. Policy change?

One of our Vice President got that letter too (he's a victim of our company going with the cheapest fare too instead of letting us choose which airline like in the past), and he jokingly shown it to me and said: "This reads too much like arrogance of airlines in America back in the 90s"

I wonder if this is another cultural difference and we are just too sensitive and not understanding to the Cathay culture like Chrisstep says... :p