El Al announced today several changes to their FF programs. The highlights:
The 3 current programs (Loyal, Fly-Buy and Matmid) will be merged into the Matmid program, The Minimum age to join will be 2 (12 today) and the points will be valid for 3 years (compared to one today). More details are yet to be released.

Some more details:
Changes will take effect July 1st 2004.

Points will expire after 3 years. Points accumulated from partners will never expire.

There will be 3 elite levels:
Silver (new) - 1000 points a year qualify, 800 to requalify. This level will get 10% bonus points, preferred rates on upgrades and confirmed 72 hour Y class tickets.
Gold - 2000, 1800. 25% on points, 48 hour Y tickets.
Platinum - 5000, 4500. 50% on points, 24 hour Y tickets.

Children under the age of 12 will not be eligible to last minute upgrade for points even if they will be Elites.

Here's what stinks about the changes:

1) 24 hour guaranteed seat for PL's is now only in Y class - not S - which means approx. $400 more

2) B and Q class are no longer upgradeable

3) The upgrade criteria is now based primarily on the class of tkt you buy and only secondarily on the status (PL, GL) - opposite of what it was till now - which means that somebody who flys less frequently gets upgraded faster with a higher class ticket - THAT SUCKS!

4) Bonus tkts are now inventory controlled.

Bottom line - if your a PL - you lost the most important privileges and perks.

I think El Al is going to LOSE business with this - not gain - especially with the weekly commuters flying TLV-NYC. They might gain back the 2 or 3 times a year folk who have gone the way of CO and the Euro carriers - but they are going to lose overall.

What pisses me off the most is the new upgrade policy. On the one hand, they've adopted FF policies similar to AA and DL - but they seem to forget that, for example, with AA, upgrades are not dependent on the class of service when you are PL or higher. LY is screwing with the upgrades a little too much. Give me back the Upgrade from Q or B AND make tier status the higher criteria - and then I'll shut-up. Until then - get ready to lose my business.

El Al - the airline in most desperate need of real competition.

I agree with most of what you said, but not with that last statement. El Al has plenty of real competition, even if it is not home-grown.

I flew to the States four times last year. Once on AF, twice on AZ, and once on DL. I flew to Italy three times on AZ. I flew to Germany once on LH -- but could have taken either AF or AZ and gotten DL miles.

I am Delta GM with 75,000 Medallion Qualification Miles. All the trips I took could have been on El Al, but for the reasons you stated -- as well as having too many flights cancelled in the past -- I generally don't fly Blue and White.

Maybe its time for El Al to realize that it DOES have competition. The casual flyer can take numerous European air lines -- or, for that matter, even Royal Jordanian. The frequent flyer can choose to be part of SkyTeam, Star Alliance, or One World and collect miles for most of his flights.

ElAl seems to "live" a generation or 2 behind everyone else.

If you see the ads accross Israel, ElAl have just "invented" connections and just started selling tickets to destinations it or it's partners do not fly to ...

About 3-5 years ago, when they started code-sharing with Swissair, they "invented" through-check of bags, again with ads accross the countries.

ElAl's Matmid program is probably the last program in the world it costs money to register to. One of the "enhancements" is that they will waive the fee if you register on board - a feature which is being phased out on most airlines. On most airlines, the only option to register today is online.

With all this, plus the on-going tries of the ministry of transportation to cause LH to reduce it's capacity (currently twice daily on A340 and B744) using the excuse they are selling tickets to destinations other than Germany ... I second LatusElAl's last statement.

Moderators -- can this be moved to the Elal forum?

This program really does sound outdated.

You realize you qouted something that was written more than 3 years ago, right?

No, I hadn't. I have to remember to not Flyertalk before I take my morning dosage of coffee.