Tag Archives for elite status.
British Airways elite members whose “Tier Point collection” (12 month member year) end date is between January – March 2022 will have their status extended for another year. Elites will have access to ‘pre-flight dining’ in lounges where this is offered regardless of class of service.. And Gold Guest List members will have access to British Airways Concorde Rooms.
The airline isn’t doing a straight-up status extension like Delta and Hilton are doing. Instead, their plan to keep elite members who don’t qualify in 2021 is more of a ‘winback’ offer.
Alaska Airlines has introduced a new top elite tier beginning ‘end of January’ 2022 as expected: MVP Gold 100K.
This new level requires flying 100,000 qualifying miles or 140 segments in a year, and in either case including a minimum of 24 Alaska Airlines flights.
Hilton Honors is straight up extending elite status again. They’re also rolling all elite nights earned in 2021 over to qualifying for status in 2022 (for the 2023 elite year) as well as reducing elite qualification requirements in 2022. They’re also extending the pause on points expiration.
American and United are still trying to press elites into service for 2021 revenue, but there’s only so much that can be done because business travel isn’t back and the Delta variant of Covid-19 is slowing down its return. Large companies and corporate travel buyers are going to be more conservative about pushing employees back into the office and ultimately onto the road.
Looking at Saturday data from American Airlines shows just how skewed towards leisure travel the skies are right now. The number of elite frequent flyers traveling is paltry especially at the very top level.
United has two new ways to earn elite status for next year. One lets existing elites keep their status for modest spending, while the other gives those who don’t currently have status or have already re-qualified a boost in reaching a higher elite tier.
It’s not quite ‘giving up’ on 2021, but it does make earning status much easier, and still requires more spending than other airlines.
Last year American Airlines stopped sending out physical elite membership cards and luggage tags to members promoting their “fully digital experience.” It was a cost-cutting move, taking something of emotional value away from top customers.
However elite kits are again being sent out to Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum members. But if you’ve already qualified for next year’s status, you’ll need to call in to request yours.
Delta already bonused all travel towards elite status and made award trips count too. Now they’re throwing in the towel, more or less, and calling 2021 another wash as they don’t want to risk losing elite members who may again be valuable customers.
They’ve also figured out how to continue incentivizing elites to travel this year – at the expense of those who do not.
Everyone knew that 2021 would be an odd year. It might not be a total loss, like 2020, where American like most everyone else just extended status. However business travel hadn’t returned in the first half of the year in a meaningful way, and much of long haul international travel remained out of reach. Customers who normally made their status on international business class tickets just weren’t doing so, yet no one wanted to lose these customers when their business returned.
With how easy they’ve made it to keep status, the airline now needs to encourage people to actually fly the airline.
American Airlines has introduced two new ways to keep your status that you held at the start of 2021. These make it really easy for existing elites to keep status, especially upper tier elites or those who do a lot of credit card spend.
They are in addition to the recently-announced three promotions for earning or keeping status, and in addition to reduced status qualification requirements.
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 »
