PABLOCO

Just got this email, from the 3rd of January next year, KMS will be change into Miles. You will also be able to redeem Miles into Hotel stays and other stuff, lets hope they dont put any stupid rules like new year

HIDDY

Sensible move.
We have a stash of kms through credit card spend so it's good to see them offering the opportunity to use them on hotel stays as I much prefer using Avios for flights.

Eastbay1K

Well, you do measure your televisions here in "pulgadas" so this change to millas should only be natural

sdsearch

Funny, that will be a back-and-forth conversion for me (with rounding error or not?) since most of my kms were earned with the US Bank LATAM Visa card issued in the uSA, which earns miles which get converted to kms on the LATAM end. Now I guess they won't have to convert.

But what about credit cards issued in other countries? I presume they issue kms directly, and so those credits will have to change (or go through the math conversion my credit cards has been doing up to now)?

But the funny thing is, they haven't sent me an email about this yet. (Just an account status email, which mentioned nothing about this.) Maybe that have to come up with completely different wording for USA, given how their USA credit card already has been earning "miles" for years?

SenSCL

Well, miles is for sure the more common "currency" in the airline programme universe, but I still do feel that this, otherwise unnecessary, change will - sooner or later - imply some less desirable "enhancements".

I have no doubt that the direct conversion of the balance from km to miles will be precise, but I believe that further down the road e.g. the requested miles for "free" tickets will be "adjusted".

LATAM just love to overcomplicate, what was once a pretty easy-to-use and transparent programme. And it seems that they have an urge to implement new rules on a yearly basis, but generously overlook real the opportunity to make real improvements like the possibilty of one-way awards.

Of course, the fuzzier it is, the more difficult it is as well to unveil unfavourable changes.

I will definitely burn the better part of my km before January...

chejus

There has been an interesting post by infoviajera blog in which they elaborate on the changes. Apparently for BBVA Francés bank customers, everything looks pretty sh-t.
Web is infoviajera.com

FairDinkumMate

You would have to assume that this is a step toward integrating the Latam Pass & Latam Fidelidade programs. Latam Fidelidade (Tam's program) uses miles, which is weird because Brazil is totally metric!

At the end of the day, I couldn't care less about what they do with the rewards programs until they get it together & start using either Amadeus or Sabre across the company. It's now simply absurd that they are years into the merger & when I fly SYD-GRU I can only sort out one leg online - SYD-SCL if I bought from Latam (anywhere except Brazil) or SCL-GRU if bought from Latam Brasil. Check-in, upgrades, seat allocations - it only works for the leg of the airline you bought the ticket from! They are still operating as TWO AIRLINES when the initial merger announcement was made in 2010 & the deal closed in 2012!!!

neuromancer

No, they use points

andreadbc

more info on > http://www.lan.com/en_us/gc/asociado..._en/index.html

Eastbay1K

And how to they measure TV / computer screens in Brazil?

sdsearch

> Members in US/CA/BR/PY/MX/EU: will start using Points and Elite Points.

Oh, how confusing. So what will be the relationship between miles and points? In the US, the US Bank LATAM credit card earns miles (which LATAM itself currently convert to kms), so if LATAM had gone miles in the US it would require no conversion any more, but now it'll require conversion from miles to points instead of miles to kms. Why?

FairDinkumMate

Right, Brazil is imperial because TV screens are advertised in inches.

Just like the US is metric because wine is sold in 750ml bottles!

Eastbay1K

I only said it because you said "Brazil is totally metric"

KoRoWa

It seems that miles and points are the same, its just different names for the same thing in different countries (stupid enough). This is still confusing and one can wonder who comes up with such nonsense.
My reason for this conclusion are the following pictures from the Chilean and UK websites:




That is also why the multipliers are changing. The only big question will be if also the points / miles for redeeming will reduce accordingly or if they will forget or at least devaluate the miles. I wouldn't be suprised. Its probably the same when they introduced the EQD.

sdsearch

I'm not sure if that's the only big question.

Are they making this split because they like a different name in different countries, or are they making the split because they want a completely different redemption chart for miles vs points? And/or different expiration policies for miles vs points?

They chose points for the US. Well, in the US, miles are used by those airline where redemption is by a chart, and points are used at the those airlines where redemption is just a multiplier of cash cost of the flight . You see why I'm scared that they chose to use the term "points" in the US?