Greetings.
Hello, I hope this email finds you well. We've recently made a few changes to the PrivilegeFlyer program that I'd like to pass on to you, our members. Below you'll find the highlights, and a few lowlights.
When Frequent Flyer Club/PrivilegeFlyer was first founded in 1987, among the benefits offered was the world's first consolidated statement, which allowed members to view all their miles and points on one convenient statement. While popular, it proved to be too cumbersome to maintain, as all the work was done manually. Of course, the Internet has changed everything, and I'm pleased to reintroduce a tool to help you easily manage multiple frequent traveler programs - MileageManager. This service is one of the most popular addresses on the Internet for frequent travelers. A MileageManager membership typically costs $14.95 per year, but through an exclusive arrangement, this benefit is now included in your PrivilegeFlyer membership at no additional cost. Detailed instructions outlining how you can take advantage of this new benefit will be included in your membership materials or you can contactPrivilegeFlyer customer service. In the meantime, feel free to click on over to MileageManager to review your new benefits.
As you might imagine, the current climate of the airline industry has had an impact on every travel-related company. We recently experienced some of this drama when renewing the insurance we've had since 1991, which allows us to extend the AwardGuard benefit to our members. In this process, it has become clear that our premiums will be much more expensive than in past years. Rather than charge more for the PrivilegeFlyer membership (in 15 years of service we've only had one annual membership fee increase), we've decided to carefully review certain terms of membership to pare down the proposed increase of cost in providing this service to you. Here they are:
- We are discontinuing the optional AwardExtender benefit for new and renewing members. Our reasoning is simple - with passive expiration of miles in many of the major frequent flyer programs, expiring miles are no longer as critical a concern as they once were. So, rather than charge a fee to protect against expiring miles/points, we will continue to provide advice on how you can keep your miles and points active.
- We are lowering the Award Flight Protection from $500,000 AD&D to $200,000 AD&D. As with the previous coverage, this only applies to award flights. For the record, in 15 years no member has ever had to take advantage of this benefit.
- The AwardGuard benefit will no longer cover 'bumped' or 'revenue' tickets in the case of airline liquidation. The reason for this change is simple; recent government legislation provides protection for frequent travelers who have tickets on an airline that ceases operation. The protection offered by the government is not that much different than what we covered - the primary difference being that the government legislation ends on February 2004.
Again, these small changes allow us to control our costs and maintain the current membership fee structure.
We have also implemented one other change - a temporary suspension of the AwardGuard benefit for new members - but this change will not affect the AwardGuard benefits you receive as a current member. As you might guess, it's not the best time to be renewing our Master Policy in regard to the specialized insurance we've had since 1991. We had hoped to have our policy renewed by April 1, 2003, but the insurance and reinsurance brokers who have put this together for us in the past are still ironing out the details of the new policy and have delayed things due to regulations and legislation using Lloyd's of London. Again, current members will continue to be covered by AwardGuard with no interruption of service.
All other PrivilegeFlyer benefits remain in place and are certain to be of great value during these difficult times, and we continue to look forward to helping you get the most of your miles and points.
So please, continue to enjoy the program that frequent flyers have benefited from since 1987.
Best Regards,
Hello, I hope this email finds you well. We've recently made a few changes to the PrivilegeFlyer program that I'd like to pass on to you, our members. Below you'll find the highlights, and a few lowlights.
When Frequent Flyer Club/PrivilegeFlyer was first founded in 1987, among the benefits offered was the world's first consolidated statement, which allowed members to view all their miles and points on one convenient statement. While popular, it proved to be too cumbersome to maintain, as all the work was done manually. Of course, the Internet has changed everything, and I'm pleased to reintroduce a tool to help you easily manage multiple frequent traveler programs - MileageManager. This service is one of the most popular addresses on the Internet for frequent travelers. A MileageManager membership typically costs $14.95 per year, but through an exclusive arrangement, this benefit is now included in your PrivilegeFlyer membership at no additional cost. Detailed instructions outlining how you can take advantage of this new benefit will be included in your membership materials or you can contactPrivilegeFlyer customer service. In the meantime, feel free to click on over to MileageManager to review your new benefits.
As you might imagine, the current climate of the airline industry has had an impact on every travel-related company. We recently experienced some of this drama when renewing the insurance we've had since 1991, which allows us to extend the AwardGuard benefit to our members. In this process, it has become clear that our premiums will be much more expensive than in past years. Rather than charge more for the PrivilegeFlyer membership (in 15 years of service we've only had one annual membership fee increase), we've decided to carefully review certain terms of membership to pare down the proposed increase of cost in providing this service to you. Here they are:
- We are discontinuing the optional AwardExtender benefit for new and renewing members. Our reasoning is simple - with passive expiration of miles in many of the major frequent flyer programs, expiring miles are no longer as critical a concern as they once were. So, rather than charge a fee to protect against expiring miles/points, we will continue to provide advice on how you can keep your miles and points active.
- We are lowering the Award Flight Protection from $500,000 AD&D to $200,000 AD&D. As with the previous coverage, this only applies to award flights. For the record, in 15 years no member has ever had to take advantage of this benefit.
- The AwardGuard benefit will no longer cover 'bumped' or 'revenue' tickets in the case of airline liquidation. The reason for this change is simple; recent government legislation provides protection for frequent travelers who have tickets on an airline that ceases operation. The protection offered by the government is not that much different than what we covered - the primary difference being that the government legislation ends on February 2004.
Again, these small changes allow us to control our costs and maintain the current membership fee structure.
We have also implemented one other change - a temporary suspension of the AwardGuard benefit for new members - but this change will not affect the AwardGuard benefits you receive as a current member. As you might guess, it's not the best time to be renewing our Master Policy in regard to the specialized insurance we've had since 1991. We had hoped to have our policy renewed by April 1, 2003, but the insurance and reinsurance brokers who have put this together for us in the past are still ironing out the details of the new policy and have delayed things due to regulations and legislation using Lloyd's of London. Again, current members will continue to be covered by AwardGuard with no interruption of service.
All other PrivilegeFlyer benefits remain in place and are certain to be of great value during these difficult times, and we continue to look forward to helping you get the most of your miles and points.
So please, continue to enjoy the program that frequent flyers have benefited from since 1987.
Best Regards,
I believe that this was predicted and relatively unsurprising.
As this is already being discuessed in an already active thread in the buzz, I'm going to shut this down.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008512.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008512.html