Short of points to renew DM
 

CX automatically renew my DM status with only 800 points. Lucky me.
Anyone has the same experience?

Wow 400 is quite a big shortfall. In your previous year did you go over the threshold significantly? And is your pattern mostly J travel?

It could be that CX is trying to stop the bleeding and just auto renewing everyone for one more year.

I was only 1200 points in the previous year. I guess many DM changed their mileage program after CX changed the point system. CX tried to retain the DM by renewal most of them. I am just a lucky one

I now wonder if CX will internally calculate everyone's point balance using the new chart eff. Dec. 2017 and renew those members who would have made it under the new system.

:confused:
Unless OP's been flying all short hauls.. otherwise it is very unlikely that he/she would have more than 1200 cps in the updated system.

It is actually good to know. My wife is 40 points away from renewing her GO at end of Dec. I guess she can relax now without doing a MR which will be a waste of few thousand HKD.


Is your DM renewal date end of Oct or Nov?

Theoretically, if OP has had a few long-haul SNQ trips combined with some short-haul trips in premium classes, it might be possible, too.

My brother told me CX renewed his GO automatically when he was about 200 CPs short last month. So I guess CX is desperately trying to retain some of their loyal pax? Prior to the MPO revamp last year, my brother has been a DM for 5 years and only dropped to GO after the revamp.

Don't know if they would retrospectively give me two lounge passes or not as I roughly estimated that I'll have around 1450 to 1500 CPs last year under the new system v.s. 1205 actual :p

p.s. I had done roughly around 25 to 30 ultra-short and short haul round trip with CX and KA last year so should give me around 250 to 300 more CPs based on the new system....

Wow that is a great anecdote. So folks like you will really benefit. Are you mainly flying J regionally?

I wish... :( I mainly flying business trip regionally only, not business class regionally....

Don't know if you've heard a of a saying: "You fly economy for business, business for vacation because vacation is more important than work" :p

I'd say 80% of those trips were business trips in full fare Y, the remaining except one were personal vacation trips, half ex-TPE CDI fare half ex-HKG SNQ fare...

The final one was a HKG-PEK business trip right before membership year end where I had 1155 CPs before the flight... Thus I paid HK$4800 myself to make up the 25CPs shortfall...

Given I closed all my 3 DM years with 81 sectors and 12xx CPs respectively only, I not dare to call and ask for mercy renewal....

When you said full fare Y, did you mean Y fare class?

Y is mostly more expansive than I, can you "upgrade" your fare class to I and "pay" the fare difference (or just keep the change) before departure?

I think sscywong is referring to full Y fare ex-HKG. Unfortunately, CX isn't that stupid. (and this is why Cathay Dragon's frequent exhortation for CX to sell cheapo biz class fares ex-HKG is difficult, although it isn't impossible and I like the suggestion. Just saying there are more variables that must be dealt with).

CX does have a group of reliable companies in Hong Kong that buy Y and B fares regularly for tickets regionally. My old firm was one of them. In that example the firm isn't price sensitive at all, but it's just a policy for flights of a few hours you fly Y class. Inevitably almost every flight regionally I'd be in B or Y class costing $5000 HKD or so round-trip to Beijing. I would bet on it that some of the larger banks were paying that price or less on corporate contracts and sending their staff in biz.

Flying to Beijing, for example I think this is a frequent route for sscywong, a one-way W fare is HK $3000-3300, one-way J fare $4,000-$5000 and one-way F fare $6000-8000. In that range. Double it for the round-trip. I'm pretty sure a one-way full Y fare is under the W fare range, the only reason I say that is I frequently end up buying last-minute full fare overnights and have actually bought all 3 of the tickets above in the last year. I priced everything out and never once did I think "wow I'm getting a great deal, buying W or J for less than Y". And in these scenarios, I never have seen I or D fare available in biz. I don't think you can buy these one-way and they also have requirements that often don't work for me and other people who buy full fare, like minimum 2 nights or can't go on certain days of the week.

The consensus above seems to be that the Marco Polo changes have not worked well for some frequent economy travellers and Cathay is now in recovery mode on that score.
But another interesting theme I have noticed in the discussion is the idea that for premium flyers, the programme offers little above what they get from premium fares, in which case it does not serve its purpose as a loyalty programme of discouraging them from price comparison shopping (especially since the changes jolted many to try alternative carriers, which opened their eyes to how poorly Cathay compares in some areas e.g. food).
This may also be something Cathay needs to address to stop the exit of members - restoring a meaningful seat guarantee, lounge access regardless of carrier, and so on could be restored, and more thought given to other potential benefits.

My family experience with CX, BA and AF is that they renew the current status for one year, even if you miss the qualification level. It is a "joker" that you can only use once.
It might not be automatic but is clearly frequent.

CX is historically ruthless to people who pay serious $ to the airline, but fail to make the grade the next year. This situation (renewing at 800, and with the number of similar anecdotes that are piling up here and in other threads) is definitely a new thing. I am perhaps taking this too far a stretch, but given some of the changes that are happening on the customer side, I think Hogg must have a different leadership style / philosophy than Ivan Chu and we're seeing some effects immediately. (one other positive thing not mentioned in here: prices for staff travel were just reduced for many routes. I'm all for anything picking up staff morale, because selfishly it helps us the customer. We the paying customers ultimately pay the price when staff hate their job and don't trust the CEO).

Interestingly, I think CX is keenly aware of a Hong Kong dynamic this last decade - the total death of the expat package - on the cost side, but hasn't realized it (or is just realizing it) on the revenue side. On the cost side, obviously CX is hiring local pilots and cutting all foreign pilots to a local package. Instead of the half million USD/year packages and living on the peak old school expat pilots enjoyed (perhaps some exaggeration, but not much), which is obviously unsustainable and completely unnecessary in this day and age. But on the revenue side, how tickets are purchased have changed. It's not a hardship to get people to move to Hong Kong. And local financial firms do not have to offer the same perks to employees transferring from NY or London, even if those employees enjoy lucrative compensation privileges simply as a result of their rank and industry.

What I mean is, 10 years agoI could point to multiple banks who had more "loose" travel policies in Asia versus North America, and part of that was the internal understanding banks needed to encourage talent to travel abroad to developing markets. (It also helped that emerging markets were seen as unlimited growth potential and Asia was exotic to guys in NY, so the tolerances for absurd Asian loss-making divisions were high). You would have vice presidents and below on equity capital markets teams flying primarily economy class in the US as dictated in their contracts, yet they'd be exclusively in J class in Asia. Well, those days are ending too.

Yet CX's MPC program still is designed for expat types, as Harbour Gent alludes to above, instead of folks who either pay for their own travel or self-direct it. Hong Kong's legacy as an expat banking center is one of the reason it hasn't been too big a deal for CX to be ruthless to travelers who maybe are DM for 5 years and "pay" (aka Morgan Stanley pays) a few hundred thousand in revenues to CX, but are quickly cut to GO or SL the first year they don't make the grade. This is acceptable behavior if that traveler was a VP in derivatives at Morgan Stanley, because realistically he might've just transferred to Dubai where he'll be flying Emirates, or to a different broker with a travel different policy, or the buy side. In short this traveler is under no illusion that his DM status is nothing but a result of his job at MS. It's almost a perk of the job.

But as expat-type packages and travel policies in Asia are cut, you end up filling J class with more self-directed spenders. And for those people the relationship with CX is more personal since there isn't a middle man like the employer (or, I know of multiple firms where the employer is paying, but the staff are legitimately choosing and "paying" for their own travel out of a budget allotment, and the staff are incenvitized in various ways to save costs for the firm).