air canada's program gets "enhanced" again

yesterday, a friend of mine alerted me to air canada's latest changes to its program. there are some good points, but of course, some really, really bad points. the original post on flyertalk was here.

first, the good: 
starting today (august 20, 2013), all tango fares, regardless of booking date, will earn at least 25% status miles. domestic markets will earn 25% status miles (from 25% non-status miles) and international markets will earn 50% status miles. they also count towards qualifying segments towards elite status. this is important for the domestic business traveler who is forced to buy the cheapest fare because of company policy. this way, at least they earn some sort of status miles. of course, this still doesn't match westjet's 100% actual miles that can be credited towards american airlines (and incidentally, i found also counts towards their million miler status). it also doesn't match the 100% status miles that all of the american based airlines offer. but it's a start.

premium economy and latitude fares will earn 125% status miles (up from 100%) and business class fares will earn 150% regardless of destination (e.g., to asia, it used to be 125%). helpful, as always, although i should note that the us-based airlines typically give 150% status miles on all their fully flexible latitude-like fares.

what would truly be impressive is if all the other airlines partners would also give status miles for all of the tango fares (especially asiana). usually, if the base airline makes a change, all of the other partners do as well. so we will see.

then the bad:
one of the big benefits of the air canada top tier status are their e-upgrade credits. you can exchange various amounts of credits in order to upgrade your seat (space available) on both domestic and international flights. it was a good value if there was space. last year, without warning, air canada began to introduce tango fares on their international markets. the new tango fare was the same price as what the old flex fares used to be. these new tango fares would not only earn 50% status miles instead of 100%, but they would now be ineligible for e-upgrades. e-upgrades only work with tango plus / flex fares or higher. and for international markets, tango plus fares were upwards of $500 more expensive. so you were paying $500 more round trip for the chance to earn 100% status miles and be eligible for a space available upgrade.

this caused a stir and everyone called it the aerolotto -- you pay the $500 but there was no guarantee that you would get the upgrade if there were too many other people who wanted to upgrade as well. and if you didn't get upgraded, you basically wasted that $500. air canada mysteriously began the practice of zero'ing out all of their upgrade space (booking class "R") even when business class was wide open. this was known as the R-games, named after the blockbuster movie of the year "the hunger games".

and then today's announcement: for international destinations, they are now introducing co-pays with the e-upgrades for altitude elite 25/35/50/75k members (super elite 100k are exempt). and they're not cheap:

that's per segment. so in addition to the aerolotto (which is an up-front co-pay), you have to pay another $1,500 round trip between canada and asia.

the nice thing is that they gave 6 months' notice. these changes take effect in march 2013. however, i'm sure that there are many who, had they known this would happen, would have credited their miles into other programs. but now it's too late -- they've most likely already earned their status for the following year, and they've already earned the e-upgrade credits which are now of significantly less value.

how do the e-upgrades compare to the american-based airlines?
by and far, i think their most significant competitors are those south of the border. united, delta, and us airways all offer unlimited complimentary upgrades for domestic and short haul flights. american airlines offer complimentary domestic upgrades on all full fare tickets. air canada makes you burn your precious, limited e-upgrades.

• delta: when you hit the 75k miles, you can pay for a higher fare in order to use your system wide upgrades (4 for 75k platinum members, 6 for 100k diamond members). apples to apples, 75k members on air canada will need to pay the co-pay whereas delta does not.
• united: for its 75k members, you get 2 regional premier upgrades valid for north america, hawaii, and northern/southern south america (the latter via copa airlines). you pay a higher fare, but no additional co-pay.
• american: it's a bit stingier for their domestic upgrades. they give you 4-500 mile upgrade certificates for every 10k miles you fly. the amount of 500 mile upgrade certificates required to upgrade a domestic/caribean/central america flight is dependent on distance. system wide upgrades only occur at the executive platinum level (100k)
• us airways: offers 2 free upgrade instruments to/from hawaii and to/from europe at the 100k level only.

so what is elite status really worth?
for the 50/75k members, i think the real benefit remains star gold status. the e-upgrades are now expensive. the bonus points may be helpful if you can redeem for seats, even if the points have been devalued a few years in a row. but if you're really gunning for star gold status, and you're finding yourself really stretching it to make the threshold, then it's probably just another reason to earn your points through asiana (40k over 2 years gets you star gold for 2 years). if you're anywhere between 50-99k, one might suggest a us-based airline, although you would lose your domestic lounge access.

i *was* going to try obtaining air canada 50k in the next few years, but i may just opt to look elsewhere and/or keep my asiana account alive and well. after all, with asiana, there's lifetime star gold status at 500k miles from any star alliance source. until, of course, asiana decides that it needs to "enhance" its program as well.