If I were QFF, I would have done one or all of the following:
- Made *ASA flights only bookable with in 7-14 days of travel (filtering out long term status planning - AND - keeping award inventory open for classic redemptions for longer)
- Increased points required to book *ASA by 10%
- Sliding scale *ASA cancel fees - 3,500 for now, 50% of price if cancelled within 48 hours of flying (thus keeping award inventory available or ODU and proving 'revenue' through increased burn from cancellations).
- Bring back online bookings for *ASA, but make it only available for Gold and above (thus giving a VERY compelling reason to want to keep status).
- Admit giving out DSC candy is doing more long term harm than the short term gain is worth.
- DSC to never apply to *ASA
This would meet all the QFF revenue objectives - and likely exceed revenue projections, all without kicking customers in the teeth.
Instead, my experience tell me members will now:
- Members that book *ASA will likely review which FF program their CC points are credited to
- Review their FF program objectives to see what other options are available
- Anyone with Lifetime Gold is at significant risk of churning loyalty programs, especially Plat and Plat One (losing top 1% of customers on the loyalty side is equal to around 5% of total revenue).
- With less CC points pooling into QFF, members are much less likely to: (a) retain QFF status , and (b) pay for QF flights
- Members spending points on *ASA that need those tickets to reach status are likely to focus their entire flight spend to either: (a) best flight of the day, or (b) which ever program works best for them now
Of course - I could be wrong