Looking at the 125k SQC requirement for SE vs the old $20k SQD requirement, would I be correct in thinking that with the premium credit card, and sufficient business spend to max out the 25k SQC earnings on that card that as an SE:

- The 125,000 SQC drops to about 113,000 SQC with the 10% head start? (if no other rollover help)
- The 113,000 SQC drops 25k SQC to 88,000 SQC with an annual spend of $125k on the premium card
- The 88,000 SQC is equivalent to a $22,000 annual spend on Flex+ fares... equating to a 10% increase from before (again for premium card users)

I imagine SE's will mostly choose the Priority rewards benefits or other at each threshold and not the 2500 sqc benefit?

If my understanding is incorrect, encourage anyone to help set it straight. Thank you!

I'm not sure how to quantify the scale of points earning being cut between AC and the other airlines.

"The problem is that what [airline] is doing doesn't make a lot of sense or at least seems poorly thought out" came up over and over again in the DL threads last year and the BA threads this year, almost word for word, over and over again. I agree with you, but that conundrum, too, is nothing new.

I'm confused. This is precisely why Air Canada stood up the Signature Suite/Signature Class. Air Canada wants more of this particular clientele. It's not personal. I don't recall the last time I ever sat foot in a MLL.

What I think I know is besides the point. My circle of folks is also besides the point. The industry is heading towards the same general direction. High revenue high margin fliers who demand an elevated travel experience is where airlines are going to maximize their profits.

Again, not personal. Lock people up for 4 years of their lives and see what happens. (COVID-19)

Re your latter comment, fair enough.

The former: scale of being cut is hard to quantify, yes, but we can compare actual earning rates (mentioned upthread): AC maxes out at 6 points/CAD, which is higher than all of AF/KL, IAG, LH Group (but not AY) - dishonourable mention to EI here - but lower than the US majors. So for SEs, the points earning is not terrible, but the dropoff is huge once you go down: 50K at 4 points/CAD is lower than BA Silver at 8 Avios/GBP or Flying Blue Gold at 7 Miles/EUR, and then non-status get 1 point/CAD, which is practically in a league of its own.
On top of that, AC currently offers 100% or more of distance on Flex fares or higher; Flex fares are generally not a lot more expensive than the lowest fares you can find. This wasn't the case for BA before they switched (the US3 switched years ago, so it was the case back then). One can make the case that this is just AC catching up, but it's still a huge cut all in one go, and more severe even cumulatively than the rest. It's actively incentivizing non-status or even low-status pax to post their AC flights to other programs.

Beyond the fact that the SS will continue to be full like it is now because none of this precludes anyone from buying paid J (at the prices it is currently available at, no less), it doesn't make AC J a highly competitive product for long-haul flights (which I assume you know is when the SS can actually be accessed).

Fair enough. However, like layoffs, there's no pleasing the entire group. If these cuts at AC are "once" (cut sharply, hard, and quickly), then is that better than 5 more years of slower cuts?

Glass half full / half empty I guess. However, it's clear to me on investor AC calls that AC's demand for premium products is through the roof. They intentionally culled low margin SEs on purpose to try to alleviate the demand for their premium products. (as they should)

I ponder if AC is going after people like me. I want to try Starlux F out of LAX or whatever next but if AC can suppress demand for SS (which by the way, one can still redeem their way into SS anyway as I'm sure you know if they pay more points) then they might improve the experience enough for me to fly them over an F product.

I don't know. I still don't think AC has done enough to win my business exclusively but I'm still processing.

Yes I also took the plunge and started accumulating an additional 100k in SQM this year on my way to hopefully bank SE status in 2026. Feels like a kick in the ... to have it devalued by 80% when I've earned it all in the current year under the current program rules.

I would understand discounting SQM that has already been rolled over at least once in previous years, but SQM earned since Jan 1, 2025 should be at a much more favourable rate than 5:1 IMO.

why would I ask if I didn�t 😉

Agreed on the SS access point: I can say for sure that there are plenty of 3k (one whole order of magnitude lower!) TATL J fares available that give access to the SS. I can fly YYZ-LIM later in the year and access the SS for even less than that. I doubt redemptions alone are the reason why the SS is full. The SS as it stands is a selling point (I chose AC on my last trip in part because it was the same price but had the SS) and it can definitely be improved so that AC can try to charge a higher fare premium. But the fact is that AC J is not that expensive a product and is far from becoming one for at least a while yet.

EDIT - now that I'm seeing the "Air Canada’s Educational Partner" brand partnership, yeah, seems clear enough there's an official relationship happening here.

I would think an exclusive on a story of this size - essentially being labeled the official-unofficial source for news on this one - would do pretty remarkable numbers for site traffic, to say nothing of buffing the strength of the brand. I wouldn't speculate any further than that without knowing more than I do.

Considering that none of the majors have even touched it, I'm wondering if they learned about it the same time we did this morning. I don't care about inter-blog drama, it's only interesting insofar as sole-sourcing the story would suggest AC *really* wanted to control the narrative around launch. Certainly, anyone who just learned about it this morning would have been hard-pressed to write up good content about it in the space of just a few hours.

I�m sitting at $27k SQD and 97k SQM right now, but requalified because I rolled over 42,000 miles. I�ll likely continue to requalify, but the glory days of rolling over 200k SQM and reaping the gifts are gone. Just as I was about to start hitting them.

Ditto. Race you.

I suspect that most credit card users who are not visiting this thread are more focused on the points they earn that the SQM/SQC, so they won't notice a change.

Yes. If you gifted status this year, you can choose at the beginning of the year and the person has status until Jan 31, 2026. Starting next year, you can only gift 50K status after you have earned 130,000 SQC, which will likely be mid or late 2026 for most SE's. That means your nominee is SOL for most of 2026.
If we assume $2,000 round trip in J between YYZ-YVR, then the person would earn 8,000 SQC per round trip - far more than the ~6,100 SQM their earn today and if they are SE they would earn 12,000 points versus 6,100 today. If you don't have status it will suck.
I think your understanding is correct - in my opinion, these changes will not significantly impact most SE's ability to continue to be SE's but there will be a lot fewer lower tier members.

I am three years to retirement, and I can't tell you all how happy I am to be at the end of a career that requires travel, rather than at the beginning of it.

Hit the nail on the head. I can't imagine the grind that corporate employees must go through now. I had it...easy compared to the young kids these days. It's all I have been thinking about since the changes.

Both of those orientations are terrible. Please provide a diagonal one.

Now that I'm overseas (After 8 great years of AC travel and 1/2 to 1MM), it's interesting that I could make 50k (and thus *G) just by

1. Spending $125k on a AC premium card (for 25k SQC)
2. Earning 125k Aeroplan points with partners/shopping (I assume this includes flights on *A partners)

I suppose it means UA/SQ flying caps out at 25k SQC - so you really have to earn 50k through AC flying. Or credit cards like the HSBC *A Credit Card (in Australia)