Kudos: Air Canada Aeroplan Extends Status (Again)

I am a United 1K based in London. Right now it’s illegal to leave the UK until June 30. I have a UA flight to LAX for July 1 which I hope will go. Until then it’s impossible for me to go anywhere. A status extension through 2022 would be very welcome to those of us outside the USA.

“As [Air Canada] describes it, “loyalty is a two-way street,” and that sure is a refreshing concept.”

Oh, but we reserve the right to illegally confiscate your money, and then to lobby the government to retrospectively change the law in our favour so we can swap it for a worthless voucher...

Shouldn’t you have a bottom line sentence for every posting about an airline, about how they treated their customers during the pandemic? That strikes me as likely to be a much more accurate reflection of their values — much like the Dr Dao case still tells you everything you need to know about United.

Incidentally, my OWE status has been extended yet again by BA, to October 2022.

@ The nice Paul -- Give the post another read, I referenced that. 😉

American should not extend elite status in 2022. If they lower the requirements fair enough. First prove you’re willing to return to travel. You chose to listen to CNN and stay at home for 15 months. Plenty of people have flown during the pandemic.

Most US airlines likely to sit on their hands a few months. Canada is way behind on vaccine roll out, as is Europe. And that's not likely to change soon. United is the most likely to move because of its dependence on international travel. Delta and American are more likely to wait to see what happens to biz travel. They may move in early June once broader vaccine roll out is done and biz travel may have started to pick up, but then we're into summer, so I'm guessing they're more likely to move in Aug/Sept after summer is over.

While the US is significantly ahead, biz travel still way down. e.g. book a ticket today for the coming weeks and many preferred seats are wide open i.e. people who have status - biz travelers - are not traveling, while leisure travelers are. Evidence of domestic leisure travel picking up is all over e.g. flights to/from Orange County, CA or looking at midscale hotel room rates for popular tourist places in June/July e.g. Oregon often $300+ p/n, some midscale places are sold out and some are even over $700 p/n.

A couple of issues

1) A lot of people ARE traveling now, and many more will be traveling later this year. Airlines need to find a way to extend loyalty to customers that are actually flying

2) If you just keep extending status, along with awarding status to current fliers, there is going to be a glut of elites in 2022 and 2023 across all of the major US airlines. Delta will see the biggest increase due to their rollover policies and credit card policies.

Its hard to see status just extended into next year without some kind of flying activity in 2021

@Anthony

There isn’t going to be a “glut” of anything. “Too many frequent fliers” will be a problem airlines will be glad to have, while the reality is lucrative biz travel won’t go back into full swing for quite some time.

David - There definitely will be a glut of Gold/Platinum on Delta next year due to rollover and credit card promotions (Diamond less sure of). Delta has been giving away elite qualification miles for two years.

Yes, US is ahead in leisure travel.
But thats not important for status extensions. There still isnt much OPM flying.
If it stays that way, US airlines will have to extend.

The bottom line is this “act of loyalty” masks the elephant in the room which is Air Canada not refunding passengers for flights they cancelled during Covid-19. If they truely wanted to display loyalty they would put their money where their mouth is. This is just pathetic... (An Australian perspective)

@Ben
In fairness you *did* reference it, but in such a way that you seemed to exonerate Aeroplan (a wholly-owned part of Air Canada) by implying they’re all lovely, and somehow that separates them from the company of which they are a part which — frankly — stole their customers’ money?

I dunno. I’m probably too cynical. I don’t forget crap like Dr Dao or customer theft very quickly; for example, I didn’t fly BA for more than twenty years after the “dirty tricks” revelations, at some cost to myself, because I didn’t want to reward executives who behave outrageously badly.

I agree with the commenter above that if US airlines don't extend status to everyone, I hope they will at least consider non-US customers. I earned 10 years of UA 1K status and haven't flown in 13 months. While I can get to the US, it is a problem to come home to Canada due to the quarantine requirements. I live in Canada's capital city and we no longer even have any international flights here; the only places I can fly direct are Toronto, Montreal and Iqaluit!

I'm with The nice Paul - your coverage of Aeroplan and Air Canada is far from neutral Ben. They are one company and continue to treat customers with contempt and disdain throughout the pandemic. Not sure why always act as a cheerleader for them?

Air Canada gets it when it comes to loyalty? They've been refusing peoples refunds for over a year and are tantamount to a criminal enterprise.

Many airlines including Air Canada have been holding on to customers money during pandemic by issuing flight credit, including Qatar Airways and Lufthansa in my direct experience. Personally I have always had good experience with Air Canada, and I appreciate them extending status once again.

I look at it like is a flight credit better than an Airlines bankruptcy where you may lose it all.

@Daniel Politeski
Curious: I had some big money trips booked with Qatar and when I cancelled everything was refunded swiftly. But I also got fast refunds from BA and KLM, so maybe I was lucky?

I’m not sure having points is lower-risk than a voucher. As you wrote, vouchers can disappear with bankruptcy; but points also disappear with bankruptcy *and* can also be — and often are — devalued at the drop of a hat. Multiple times. Neither of them is anywhere close to being as secure as cash in your pocket.

I have mid-tier elite status split across three US carriers right now, based in Canada there's likely no international travel until at least Q3 at this juncture, and while booking flights for the last 4 months of the year, I pretty much determined that even consolidating all my flying with one of the carriers, there's no way in the last 4 months of the year that I can requalify for Elite Status in that short time.

So unless one of those carriers extends elite status (for Canadian or Intl members at least) then I have no motivation to be loyal to any and will just book the best schedule/fare combination on any carrier as there's no realistic chance to requalify on any of them.

If one of the carriers extended elite status, this would be a big determining factor in consolidating my flying around that carrier.