Tag Archives for elite status.
American Airlines, like many other travel companies, has reduced requirements for earning elite status in 2021. However they haven’t done nearly enough considering that business travel won’t restart for some time.
American Airlines knows this and is cold calling customers, and following up with an email, offering to sell bundles of elite qualifying miles, segments, and qualifying dollars at a variety of price points.
Southwest Airlines hadn’t yet shared reduced requirements for elite status and companion pass in 2021. That’s changed. And like Marriott they’re giving members credit towards status rather than lowering requirements. They’re also extending Companion Passes that were earned in 2019 for 2020.
IHG Rewards Club has launched its first quarter promotion, reduced elite status requirements for 2021, rolled over 2020 to count towards earning status this year, and extended the pause on points expiration and the validity of free night stay certificates.
Hyatt cut its elite status earning requirements in half and is offering double elite nights for the first two months of 2021. Hilton cut its elite status earning requirements in half. But from Marriott we’ve heard nothing. Major airlines have announced their plans too… but not Delta or Southwest.
Alaska Airlines is offering a 50% elite qualifying miles bonus their own flights January 1 – June 30, 2021. No registration required, and this is a bonus towards elite status qualification and not bonus miles you can spend on award travel.
The margin on things other than airline tickets is generally much higher than that of air transportation. Selling miles is a high margin business. Selling preferred seats is too. A customer with a co-brand credit card who uses it on the airline’s shopping portal and buys upgrades is a high margin customer, and a customer worth fighting over – and treating well.
This is being recognized by airline frequent flyer programs around the world and it’s time this recognition come to the U.S. too.
JetBlue was on a cost-cutting trajectory going into the pandemic. They haven’t eliminated change fees the way other U.S. airlines have on non-Basic Economy fares. But they’re having to turn to their loyalty program to drive bookings.
And they’ve announced several changes that make it easier to earn elite status, and more valuable to do so. They’re introducing lower qualification thresholds, several months of a companion pass, and new bonuses.
Alaska Airlines has changed how elite status will be earned in 2021. Alaska used to require more miles flown if you include miles on partner airlines than if you’re using miles flown exclusively on Alaska. That’s gone.
Starting in 2021, Alaska and partner flights will count the same towards elite status, and the lower “Alaska-only” status requirements apply. But they’ll require a minimum number of Alaska flights for status – to keep low yielding American Airlines flyers from just dumping their American segments into Alaska.
In March 2017 World of Hyatt replaced Hyatt Gold Passport. Nothing changed about earning or redeeming points, this was entirely a change to Hyatt’s elite program.
Hyatt’s cutting elite qualification requirements in half for 2021 seems surprisingly like rolling back the clock to Hyatt Gold Passport.
Whether 2021 status requirements are set too high or too low really isn’t clear yet, because we don’t know what travel is going to look like even as it starts to come back once the pandemic begins to get under control. And not all benefits are scarce, so that more elites mean fewer benefits for those who earn it ‘the hard and usual way’.
If it turns out there are too many elites, how a program handles that is still entirely within their control. But we’re going to have to wait to see how the 2021 travel year develops, and how programs continue to respond. Laying out elite qualifying criteria is the start of this, not the finish.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
