[Sunshine]

Forget Miles: give me tier points.

like a number of posts on here I have immense trouble redeeming miles for decent travel (a long haul business or first class trip, for example), so miles are now pretty useless to me. I’ve racked up close to a million of the things and just can’t use them with the flexibility I need. BA told me I had to book 12 months in advance for a business trip to Australia. I actually managed, a year ago, to plan 12 months in advance – had to go to Perth for a wedding – and contacted BA at 8am 12 months to the day before my planned trip only to be told that all miles seats were fully booked!

Anyway, what I want to know is whether or not there’s an airline that acually acknowledges and rewards true frequent fliers? Up until last year I was a gold member with BA. Am now a silver and rapidly working my way towards blue. Despite this downtun in my status within BA, my travel has actually gone up since the hay-days of Gold status… it’s just our company policy has changed.

Our thresholdd for Business travel has increased steadily from 5 hour journeys to 12 hour journeys. We now also have to fly on the cheapest available flight with the airline, so are very usually on resticted tickets or special discounted codes. All this means that despite flying to the States 4 times, Tokyo, Beijing, 8 trips within the EU and 2 to the middle East (all since January), I have managed to rack up just under 80 Tier points.

As mentioned, Miles don’t really mean much to me (too many to use already), but Tier Points (giving me access to fast check-in/baggage drop, express security clearance and specifically lounge access) are really important.

I am still a significiant flyer though not that BA would acknowledge and I just want to know why there’s no programme that acknowledges people who do show loyalty and do fly a lot, rather than those who just fly at a certain price

[VintageKrug]

I would strongly recommend looking to redeem your bmi miles in the coming months.

Lufthansa have already made changes to the scheme, such as restricting miles+cash bookings on Lufthansa (no F tickets may be booked using this method), removing the exemption from the credit card booking fee for bmi credit card holders.

Of most importance right now is the looming change to F redemptions which will take effect next week, from 1 May 2009, considerably increasing the numbers of miles need to fly in First Class cabins, moving from a x2 of regular economy miles to a x2.5.

Enjoy your chat with Pune – make sure you are fully prepared before you call them as they are not good at “thinking around a problem”!

[aviationfan]

Since SQ’s introduction of the A380 twice a day, there has only been one flight on which you can upgrade from economy to business with mileage redemption (the daily 747 flight). An upgrade (subject to space availability) would be 45,000 miles on the 747. BUT they’ve just replaced the remaining 747 with a 777-300ER and have now doubled the miles needed for an upgrade from 45,000 to 90,000, apparently because it is a better onboard product. While this may be the case, SQ has effectively overnight doubled the amount of miles needed for UK passengers to gain an upgrade.

You would think that SQ, who are severly struggling in this downturn, would treat its loyal customers a little better and not double the amount of miles needed. I understand the argument that more miles are required for a better onboard product, but since the removal of the 747 and replacement with newer 777, the UK Krisflyer passenger now has no choice and has to fly twice as much in order to gain that little treat for its loyalty. And that is no incentive !

[VintageKrug]

This is a real constraint of the Krisflyer scheme; A380 seats are also charged at a mileage premium.

The fact you never quite know what sort of seat you will end up with, even on supposedly flagship routes, as well as robotic Stepford crew, are major negatives.

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