ak333

Almost a month late, but along with my new card was a survey asking to be faxed back about why I didn't fly them as much. I'm wondering how much I should say.

FF program?
Changes to Diamond waitlist?
Lounges?

coolfish1103

I don't think they will make many changes so it depends on how much you value your time.

wolfy187

hmm... all the above..

how about no more airport miles upgrades
nickle and diming all their highest level FF
changing rules to benefit eva and slowly taking away benefits

all the other general bs

coolfish1103

Well they did take out black out dates and added Econ > Laurel/Business, you cannot deny that favors the FFP Though if they don't release more buckets per cabin it will still be useless

wolfy187

coolfish,

what that tells me is that it is the same bs that eva has been pulling. looking like it is adding features in reality taking some away. you can upgrade direct from econ to business but you have to buy a HIGHER grade ticket to upgrade at all.

so that takes away from the ability to upgrade from a discounted ticket to another class. same as shortening the "guarantee window" for diamond cards last summer. sounds good from 72 hours to 48 hours. but you have to buy a Q or M which are the more expensive tickets.

eva has been pulling this crap for a few years now. i got two year renewal for my diamond back in october i have basically stopped flying with EVA for about 6 months since my current diamond card does not expire until the end of may and :
A. my additional miles on them do me no good and i have too many miles already.
B. i feel like im getting screwed everytime i need to do something with them even though i logged a million miles in the last 6 years.
C. everytime i get a news release from eva i have to really read the fine print cause they are always taking something away. and i dont i wont realize until you need to do something and they give you the shaft.

VENT VENT over

w.

tris06

You know previously i thought Eva's system was better than China airlines. But maybe both are very identical in value? Sounds like getting upgrade by using miles on EVA is harder than CI. Now operational upgrades i am not sure which one is more often.

Though i did hear not sure if true. If your a paragon/emerald and you fly to USA in business they will put you up to first if there is space. Nice little feature if so.

coolfish1103

Asian FFP are never that great...

Well, it's the "enhancement program" that all airlines take... most of the time you won't see just goodies... they come in a combination. Like I was surprised when CI brought down the tier qualifications as a whole all by itself... though I am leaving soon

To be honest I don't see anything wrong by forcing the FF to buy a higher bucket fare for upgrades. It's not some ridiculous high fare when compared to some airlines like Delta, and you do earn a tad more miles in return. What really annoys the FF is there aren't enough seats released... so buying those higher fares don't necessary guarantee an upgrade... or you only get your upgrade at the gate and miss all the complimentary benefits (priority baggage, lounge access and etc).

Similar to what I said above for the guaranteed seats. Technically they are reserving a seat for you in a hurry with you being their Diamond member, so the monetary cost of pulling a VDB (or even a IDB) is probably higher, and that is the good gesture you get for being a Diamond.

Even with that said, it doesn't mean I agree that they should change the guarantee from 72 hours to 48, or to change the bucket fare at an immediate fashion without prior notice. I mean you qualified for Diamond 1-2 years ago, so these changes should be announced 1-2 years early if a "worse enhancement" is to come.

Yeah, fine prints are getting annoy in many businesses. You just can't trust the advertisement or announcements by themselves anymore.

tris06

Yeah it will be sad to see you leave coolfish. Though you still will be a gold member
until 2015. Been an interesting ride for you all the way upto
paragon and down again. I never had much problem getting upgrades on long haul if you plan 2-3 months before. If you leave the program who will keep the thread for taiwan frequent. Fliers going?

jimbo99

I'll drop back to Gold in a few months. I got Diamond having been Gold for 8 years. (Probably 12 years in total.) From June I'll likely put my EVA miles onto another *alliance programme - unless EVA offer a tangible benefit to their own Golds above *Golds (Garden access at TPE would be good.)

Frankly I don't care what the specific benefits of Evergreen Club are and feel they are entitled to make any changes they like - I can accept this. BUT - the problem is changes which are retrospective in nature and a failure to stick to the spirit when delivering advertised benefits. This is why people feel cheated by EVA. I sometimes use LCCs where there is no programme at all. I'm fine with that. What a pity for EVA - they've come up with a loyalty scheme which actually makes me feel less loyal than I do with an airline that doesn't have a scheme at all!

My gripes are:
1) Offering award flights/upgrades and then simply not having the availability. It is clear they resent people having the audacity to attempt a "free" flight/upgrade. I've been OK whilst Diamond but know this will be a problem going back to Gold. Years ago - before I had any status with BR it never used to be a problem at all. Now it's even a problem with Gold.

2) The general lack of priority given to Golds. Eg being waitlisted in one bucket on an existing flexible ticket whilst they attempt to sell tickets out of a higher bucket to newcomers. This never used to be a problem - if you had a flexible ticket you could generally get the date put in you wanted unless the flight really was full. Gold priority wait listing really meant that. No proper "priority" luggage handling (perhaps this will change with star alliance). No fast track security at LHR.

3) Shortening the expiry of miles already accumulated. Many silvers/low-end golds got caught out by this.

4) Removing the 8 year rule when people were 5 or 6 years into qualifying under it - and removing the upgrade vouchers for those about to qualify under this rule in the meantime.

5) Changing the rate of accumulation at short notice - so that you buy a ticket thinking you'll get X number of miles, but actually you get fewer.

6) The frequency of changes. You can't expect Evergreen Club to gain long term loyal PAX if you keep nitpicking away.

Well.... I could go on. But for me it's simple now - I just don't trust Evergreen Club and *alliance entry provides me with an exit. I fly some Lufthansa/Swiss. It would sometimes suit me to fly Thai (BKK-SGN or even LHR-BKK) or SQ rather than EVA. I used to put miles with BMI, recently I've put them with Aegean. With its entry to *alliance and the track record of Evergreen Club, I will be:

1) flying more with TG/SQ and less with BR
2) putting my miles elsewhere

coolfish1103

I will still be with China Airlines for short haul since CI/DL have reached an mutual agreement to not award bonus miles on China Airlines flight anymore. In addition they cut the miles one can earn from 125%/100% to 100% or even 75%... so those sectors will stay with China Airlines. Occasionally might credit a flight or two from DL to CI if miles appear to be racking enough (or if CI actually gets a brain and make the FFP better).

Regardless whether I am leaving the program or not I will try my best to get updates going... not like I am doing a good job now but I don't plan on dropping the work anytime soon.

LCC's program is cheap and no flexibility Yes I do agree with you that they shouldn't retro anything they have published.

Well these days they have learned to just upgrade you at the gate (so they wait till absolutely the last minute to give you the seat because they can't sell them anymore). Though in all honesty, are they even trying to sell those seats at the check in counter? Why can't they get it sort it out 4 hours prior to flight departure?

I am not too sure what will happen to CI Emeralds with the tier downgrading from 110k to 70k, sure an influx of new members to come. I do feel that I am appreciated by being a first time Emerald member, though.

It's been increasingly difficult to try to make flight changes on either BR or CI due to fare buckets on packed flights. Low loads are usually easy to make a change for CI. I am not sure how BR works now exactly since haven't flew with them from 2009...

You need to thank CI for shortening first... BR just followed. Now I hope CI will follow BR and cut out the blackout dates (but seems impossible cause almost all Skyteam members have them).

Though I think CI got enough complaint so they extended the miles expiration date thrice (first to 2012/06, second to 2012/12, third to 2013/03). Did BR extend the expiration dates?

This change is really bogus. Like I said in the previous post I don't agree with them doing that by taking away a published benefit because too many Gold members coming in.

Well I think that happens on many carriers... not just Evergreen FFP.

I mean you can put all your miles in Aegean for status, they are so easy to obtain status in comparison to BR... wonder how long that will last

jerryhung

It's 2 months away till June 18 date of joining *A
no news on how EVA will handle *A Elite members @@

I fly EVA on June 21 and hope for some benefits before then, for my lowly-obtained *G via Aegean :P
at least, let me collect on Aeroplan or anything but EVA miles

ak333

I have another trip coming up next month, and my agent automatically booked me on BR; I think she was surprised when I told her to check CX (and I actually ended up booking with JL, oneworld is oneworld ). With all of the changes coming, I'm glad I made the switch when I did. And I haven't yet seen the promised 500 miles for sending back my survey.

jimbo99

Perhaps they didn't like your answers...
Or they decided that surveys no longer get miles, backdated to 2005..

coolfish1103

They probably don't want to award you anything for not taking their flights in the future