Thursday, January 8, 2009
What we'll lose with new Airpoints
Here is my guess as to what we will lose:
UPGRADES:
1) Gold and Gold Elite complimentary upgrades reduced to Tasman and Pacific Express only.
2) Redemption long-haul upgrades reduced to Economy to Super Economy, and Super Economy to Premium only, i.e. no more Pacific Class to Business Class.
STATUS CREDITS:
Status credits on all other Star Alliance credits will be wiped out, just as Lufthansa has done, meaning that in effect only longhaul Air NZ travel will qualify flyers for silver or gold status.
They will try to conceal this by offering irrelevent rubbish, like the current car and hotel upgrade vouchers which are unusable and worthless.
Of course what should be happening is that there should be accelerated points and status earning for silver and gold members like with every other program. I'm not holding my breath!
Not the most optimistic of posts, but you may well be right. Let's hope not!
STATUS CREDITS:
Status credits on all other Star Alliance credits will be wiped out, just as Lufthansa has done, meaning that in effect only longhaul Air NZ travel will qualify flyers for silver or gold status.
I had no idea LH had done this - I had kind of assumed that a condition of all Star FFPs had to be that all *A members flights counted for status, and no non-*A flights did (except for subsidiaries of the host carrier). Taking that away removes one of the most fundamental advantages of an airline alliance - if I'm a Lufthansa *G and I want to fly somewhere LH doesn't fly, what is my incentive for choosing a *A carrier (apart from lounge access etc)? I doubt NZ will go down that path...
I am interested to see if the airpoints required for LHR-AKL-LHR in the new 'upper class' will be set at a level less than there current first class redemption?
Time will tell.
I am very excited about the cabin overhaul and the changes at NZ in general but I've already chosen other carriers in the past due to the discount economy fare classes only earning half of the SCs. Now with my 40odd domestic flights not earning any points (mostly) and my Tasman travel generally not earning anything I only need a bit more incentive to drop them altogether. If the G and GE complimentary UGs were to be restricted to Tasman/Pacific only then that would be exactly such an incentive, no matter that I do like the airline.
I credited points for one (!) flight to TG the other day and am already a silver member with them. Despite all my travel this year I don't even think I'll make NZ silver, and this includes a whole bunch of long-haul flights. NZ should see their FFP as a great tool that can work to their benefit, not as some sort of burden.
Anyway, let's wait and see. It might all turn out better than we fear!
LH changes from 1 August arent quite as dire as you suggest. Yes they have removed the 25%/50%/75% tier bonus (for all except LH/LO/OS/UA) but you still get miles and status miles on M&M regardless of *A carrier. The current discussion in LH forum is around the minimum miles and also the earning rate for discounted economy (which has been reduced significantly on LH/LO/OS flights) - none of which is very clear in respect of the other *A carriers.
I would be extremely surprised if any *A FFP could get away with no status miles (credit in case of Airpoints) for flying another *A carrier - except on an exception basis for some fare types (eg SQ cheap fares) or where legally required (eg some SK routes).
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