Will AY Extend elite status or otherwise incentivize travel postponed by COVID-19?
 

Not sure if this is already discussed in some other thread. As in every crisis there's an opportunity, I wonder why Finnair has not taken initiative and thought of extending the Tier membership periods due Corona? Many hotel chains have reached out to me and extended membership level period towards end of this year but I'm surprised Finnair has not done anything yet.

Once we're done with the crisis, we'll be back on travels.. I've strong preference still for Finnair but also if I drop levels, I might consider some other options as well.

What do you guys think?

Agree - probably they wait and see, hoping for this to go away asap, without having to take action. If so, it's short sighted.

I posted my lines of thought earlier - in general I assume their response will be focused on getting travellers back in the air. Extending your tier won't really do that, at least not right now, and not in a very direct way.

Also, for how long should they extend? They have no idea how long this is going to last. Extend everyone 3 months? Probably not a long enough period. Give everyone next year for free? What incentive is then left to fly?

Also, should they do a general extension, even if your membership year end is far away? Sure, everyone "lost" x months of flying, but if your membership year still has 6 months to go when pace picks up, then it might be unnecessary to extend. For corporate flying, there might even be a stored demand and once bans are lifted corp flyers might rush for flights. Or not - no one can really know at this point.

If I was running things in loyalty I would
a) wait until there is a reliable prognosis for development (virus and future demand)
b) target "good" customers who are nearing (or have passed) membership year end
c) offer extension coupled to new bookings, eg 2x or 3x TP promo, fly x segments within y days to extend tier or recover lost tier, et.c
d) as the number of b)-customers likely are not large enough to help with the overall demand situation, I'd do a lot of general promotions too, but I would not couple that to extending tier. For those who lost tier during this phase, I would assume there is a strong drive to self-help, ie traveller has incentive to as quickly as possible recover their lost tier.

I like CXs approach with XX tier points issued for mpnths affected thus not giving anyone a free ride but also not penalizing anyone :)

Indeed. I, for one, have grounded due to company policy for over month now and it looks challenging to make even platinum, not to even talk about maintaining my status.

I do think this would be a fair and good way to make people stay with the program through the hard times....

obviously they are radically cancelling flights so only fair to ease the the requirments a little... with everyone on different qualifying years this system would make a equal easement to all In My Humble Opinion 😃


they could easily do:

Lumo 37500p/month
Platinum 12500p/month
Gold 6500-6600p/month
Silver 2500p/month

these would obviously be tier points only so Finnair would not really lose much... they could easily do this for say 3 months at a time so they could see the effects...

You better turn to own pocket -mode. Cheap flights are waiting.

I see this all hassling is making to reach status easier.

some companies around the world have imposed a ban on even self paid travel for employees to many areas resulting in forced leave if traveling...

does not apply to me but for many even self paid travel may not be a option for many in these times...

Even better! Then you get MORE time to fly! :D

😂😂 for some maybe, though Financing trips with no pay perhaps not the easiest 😂😂

No company has the power to tell who can travel and where in their spare time. In North Korea maybe not in western world.

I'm not that desperate, not even close :p

Besides, the summer is coming. No problem at staying home.

Policies or not, would say vast masses of people are now avoiding flying or traveling due Corona. Of course, for some this is an opportunity to find cheap flights as well. As said, in every crisis there's an opportunity :)

Would still encourage Finnair, if someone from Finnair is reading this, to think whats the opportunity here to raise loyalty instead of automatically let it decline as time passes during this crisis.

You are right as such. But every company has the right to ban people from coming to the office for a period of time, if they have been in places they define as dangerous.

Yeah, but they pay for that. No problem. You get salary and you watch Eurosport or go to Greece.

Friend of mine going on vacation to Thailand and their company policy is 14 days keep out of office. So His holiday is 14 days in Thailand and 14 days on soffa and probably watching Ice Hockey games and drinking beer. And full salary paid . :D Fantastic.