Emirates, Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific have chosen to extend their frequent flyer elite statuses for their customers. Lets dive in and see what they are offering to their customers.
Emirates/flydubai (Skywards)
Emirates Boeing 777-300ER at Oslo Gardermoen Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The Skywards loyalty programme will allow its members to retain elite tier status until 2022. The extension will be for on all tier status reviews scheduled for 2021, with statuses extended by an additional 12 months.
Breaking the changes down:
- Emirates Skywards Silver and Gold members with a tier review date before 31 December 2021, will have their current tier status extended by an additional 12 months.
- Emirates Skywards Platinum members with a tier review date before 31 December 2021, will also have their current tier status extended by 12 months, in addition to the Gold status of any nominee.
- As an example, if a member has a current tier review date on 31 March 2021, their new tier review date will be extended to 31 March 2022.
Miles validity will also be extended, with Skywards Miles due to expire since April 2020 until 30 June 2021.
Qatar Airways (Privilege Club)
Qatar Airways Airbus A350-900 at Hamad International Airport, Image Economy Class and Beyond
Qatar Airways Privilege Club will extend its members’ tier status. They will l extend members tier status until 31 December 2021 and applies to their Silver, Gold and Platinum members whose tier is due to end this year and have not earned enough Qpoints to retain it.
The airline last year also changed its Qmiles policies – so that when a member earns or spends them, their balance is valid for 36 months.
Cathay Pacific (Marco Polo Club)
Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER departing Chicago O’Hare – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
With the launch of Cathay Pacific’s automatic tier renewal scheme in April 2020, all memberships that expire between May 2020 and April 2021 will be renewed, with the airline issuing all unused mid-tier benefits that expire during the same time period – for another 12 months.
All Green, Silver, Gold and Diamond memberships expiring in 2021 will be renewed, regardless of whether the tier requirements have been met.
The first of many
With the travel outlook degrading (for obvious reasons), airlines are already looking to shore up loyalty for another year as their passengers remain grounded.
The action – whilst not costly – is an easy method to encourage loyalty when travel restrictions ease.
This is just three airlines to start with – I suspect many other airlines will be looking at the move and considering their options as the year progresses, as well as the traffic of their elite frequent fliers.
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