Program changes - Platinum
 

Received a letter today outlining four program changes and how they may benefit or be modified for Plats...

Segment Qualification...old news

WorldPerks administrative fees...referred to in another thread. Plats are exempt from these.

Enhanced Elite upgrades by preventing the lower caste, non-elites from upgrading cheap fares with miles. I've been nearly 100% anyway.

Circle trip awards. You can now book domestic only circle trip awards. They will cost 37,500 miles. In the example they gave they used MSP-NYC-DTW-MSP with allowed stopovers in NYC and DTW. No mention what happens if you live in IND and want to go to BOS and NYC. Does one of the stopovers have to be at a hub or connection point? We'll see.

I guess in a year when the airlines are struggling, it's difficult to expect much in the way of enhancements altho' the FF programs are one of the most profitable areas of the airline business.

The elite "improvements" will be that things won't get worse for us as fast as the non-elites. Kind of a left handed enhancement, but what the heck.

I think it's nice that there are some "exemptions" being set aside for the most frequent flyers.

We all understand that when a business is losing money they have to cut costs.

We are being impact the least of all the passengers!

RC

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 12-28-2002).]

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif How about raising revenues, restructuring the organization, overhauling the product, etc? Couldn't a business also do that?

i got the same email (more or less) a couple of days ago with a note at the bottom saying they would forward my comments to marketing. We shall see.

I am curious to hear what people think of Russ Hinckley saying that NW was going to role out ways to differentiate PLAT from GOLD then doing this (which in my mind is marginal in enhancing top tier status).

when CO lied last year about one pass I jumped ship, should I jump NW????

If that's the sum of it then I'm disappointed. The concensus of our online chats with Russ have been pretty unanimous - make it easier for top level elites to fly WBC.

Russ' answer is always - that's why Plat's get 125% bonus - to make it easier to buy Rulebusters.

Problem is there is no rulebuster that allows upgrading discount fares. And worse WBC rulebuster comes out of the C bucket which has dismal availability at best.

NW you can do better!

Old news as in there is no NWA segment qualification? Or are they starting it up and I missed something?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum35/HTML/004823.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum35/HTML/004793.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum35/HTML/004730.html

Yes, RC, I agree but it is somewhat sad when program improvements are simply "we're not degrading the program as quickly as others."

Sign of old age, I guess, but I have nostalgia for the days when three fly-write tickets (20K miles each for you youngsters) got two of us to Europe and back any time of the year.

Yes, The flywrites were great! I would carry a few with me and could travel on a moments notice to wherever I needed to go.

That was before NWA.COM.

Different times.

At least there is recognition that the the most active Plat Elite flyers shouldn't be restricted/penalized by7 the new rules as much as the "Joe Leisures" and less frequent flyer elites.

RC

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 12-29-2002).]