I'm hoping that the mention of AY+ on the MPC/Asia Miles board won't start an exodus of discontented Silver elites over to AY+ and end up screwing the program and you all. I could have reached through my screen and throttled the guy who said he was going to join AY+ instead.

Assuming you mean post#163 of the "Changes to MPC.." thread?

Well, while most MPC members will have an easier time earning tiers with just about any other OW program, they will learn that not all golds are equal. Flying CX with a MCP status do have special advantages.

Yep, that's the one. 14 pages in 30 hours... we're kind of nuts :P

Personally I'm not going to consider changing to AY+ until I've moved to Riga. I'll see how I go.

I don't see how it'd screw up - most possible deserters will never set foot on an AY plane. Award space will not be thus running out - and ex-MPC members will be in a shock when they'll want to redeem for CX flights using AY points and discover the price/earning ratio!

Meanwhile the AY+ programme would make a bundle selling all those points to CX. Yes, they'll use the lounges, but I think it's peanuts.

If AY would want to stop the exodus from MPC to AY+, they'll just introduce a minimum metal requirement.

Well, they most likely will redeem AY HKG-europe so those flight would be affected

I don't know the redemption pattern of MPC members, but I'd guess they redeem quite a lot to intra-Asia, AUS and N-America. And with CX flying directly to the main destinations, the "threat" is no big, IMO.

Also if they earn mainly on CX metal, it'll take them quite a while to amass 148k points for a Asia-Europe C award on AY with just 125% earnings in C (so at least 120k BiS kilometres, 75k BiS miles) If they wan to go CX, that's a massive 255k points to redeem!

I guess many those guys are in for a nasty surprise - even when they reach OWS, they won't have enough points for one C redemption to Europe.

Yup. And I'm in agreement with you a influx of MPC members wouldn't change much in most cases.
What I meant is that if they do redeem anything on AY it will most likely be AY69/70. And using their upgrade vouchers there, too.
OP said he switched because it would quickly earn him OW sapph. But even if he then credits the rest of his CX flights elsewhere, he will yearly have 90k points and 4 SH vouchers to burn on AY.

Redeeming might be a nasty surprise, but the nastiest one is that CX treats their tier members waaaay better that AY does.

I just did a qiuck bench and while MPC still is difficult to achieve tiers in, for the first time Diamond is actually quite achievable!

It does now only take 7 r/t EU-HKG in Business saver. An AY-flight EU-HEL-HKG in I earns 170TP. A CX flight EU-HKG earns the same or less (!) because the short haul leg on CX connections falls into the shortest mileage band.

While 7 r/t is a lot, Diamond tier now is only 79k BIS miles for me, compared to 96k BIS miles earlier.

Also, the program now accepts 12 y.o. as full members, and they even oficially said they recognize that younger flyers pay full fare and should be treated as tier members too.

And the CX-office in copenhagen is absolutely fabulous.

It'll take even less than 7 r/t if you chose to continue on to Australia. And I'm glad that they're now allowing those 12 and older to become MPC members, it means they won't be like me and have to wait until their 18th birthday to get status.

I think it's mostly the members who renew by sectors who are annoyed by the changes. I can renew silver status by two return trips from PER to EU and one to HKG on CX in V fare class, which is easy enough as a leisure traveler let alone on business.

SYD and MEL (like HEL) falls into the Medium-Long category, while AKL (and CPH, not currently CX trafficed) is Long. If CPH is reopened that would be a nice route. But it is also possible to tuck on a HKG-AKL CX fligh on above mentioned AY ticket.

The key when a program adopts the region-based earnings (like AY did a few years ago) is to find those routes that are just above a threshold as they will often be best value for money. Sadly, the QR route DOH-MEL is just 75 mi short of Ultra-Long.

One minus with MPC is the lack of tier bonus / lower renewal requirements.

My share of höpötalk here.

I have heard some people lately thank AY for decent prices between at least certain Nordic citypairs (for ex HEL-STO) and the load factors are high. This must be good for AY and us customers. I must say that some years back I flew SK since their pricing was much better, but have turned to AY on these routes as SK forgot about Finland a couple of years back.
But but, my talk is about what the *** is these domestic flights and few others, where you pay +600€ all the time??? I understand if there is no competition. But many times if you add the same domestic legs as connecting-extensions of your, say, EU-trip, the price of those "legs" are only few tens. Do they really think that they are out of competition domestic? Well, people choose to drive their car, or take Onnibus, or even VR!! I do, or I may even consider buying 20k AY points and buy an award seat, it becomes cheaper!!
What is that crazy prizing about? Is it due to some earning mechanisms between AY and Norra, since most of these are operated by Norra?

As a note, I constantly see SK domestic tickets in Sweden very cheap and you can buy oneway...

If there is a nordic domestic route where there is money to be made, DY is already in the game. All the remaining loss making routes are gladly left to WF/SK/AY. Who offer a cheap tag on to a longer flight, but charge an arm and a leg if you just want to fly domestically.

Or indeed fly 100km HEL-TLL. 400€ for a day or next day return is nothing special... :td:

And now for something totally different.

Just flew TK xxx-IST-NRT in C. I was awestruck - easily beats the BA F or maybe even the LX F product. OK, it's 2-2-2, but otherwise. Fast onboard wifi (free in C, 15USD in Y for the flight) DoCoMo's fab catering and a lot of FA's - at least 4 (maybe 5) in the C cabin + the chef. Good IFE, too.

If it wasn't such a big detour for (N)E-Asia, I'd be a convert. For SE-Asia it's not even too big detour.

And on the return flight I'll renew my TK*G until March/2019 (!)

Thats just the first impression. I'm on TK longhaul again this November to PVG and visited their facilities (catering, flight training, maint, etc) last November. TK is nice when everything lines up, but if the FAs are not in the mood onboard, the experience is terrible, inflight safety is totally optional (my seat neighbour on CAN-IST in C basically decided it was OK to watch a movie on his ipad in full recline and without seatbelt and was let to do whatever he wanted), and their ground handling crew (havas) is mostly clueless.