2023 will reset status to millions of frequent flyers worldwide, but lounges won't empty out

At the outbreak of the pandemic, all loyalty programs reacted by renewing statuses to all members ex officio, also to those users who had not been granted renewal in the field in 2019 and would lose the level in 2020. It happened in 2020 and of course also happened in 2021, and as early as the end of last year the various frequent flyers announced that the cakewalk was set to end with the return to normalcy.

And so it was, since in 2022 practically only Singapore Airlines renewed status ex officio to members, also compounded by the difficulty in travel to Asia and Oceania due to Omicron and border closures.

Not only office renewals, but also lots of status match campaigns to jump from one alliance to another without even having to fly and reduced requirements to renew/obtain status from airlines and hotel chains.

The end result was millions of travelers holding so many cards. Cards whose days are numbered today.

So many elite customers around

The combination of automatic renewals and reduced requirements has led to true generalized crowding at the top tiers of the various loyalty programs, with travelers holding top tier cards without having hardly ever traveled.

While this has led to many benefits for travelers it has also hurt just as many. Extremely difficult upgrades to obtain, crowded lounges, and poor service are just some of the situations that have been experienced over the past 6 to 8 months, that is, since traffic has returned above 2019 levels.

With the coming of the new year and the expiration of membership cards the situation in some respects should improve, but not for everyone.

Pay attention to the expiration of points

Expiring, like milk, will be not only the elite levels but especially It will be program points that will be short-lived again. If, during the pandemic, companies had decided to freeze point expirations, now all these parachutes are set to disappear and then the normal life of individual program points begins again.

Expiring millions of points and statuses. CHECK your Flying Blue account

We've reported on it in recent months, there are, for example, members of Air France and KLM's Flying Blue program who on December 31 will say goodbye to more than 100 thousand points, or A round-trip business class ticket to the United States and beyond. The same goes for Krisflyer points and all those loyalty programs that have a fixed expiration of points or require an activity to renew them.

Fewer elites, better life for elites

The first consequence of this "rain of tiles" will obviously be a better life for survivors. Especially with the statuses of Hilton, Marriott, IHG and all the other with fewer Elite customers around it will be easier to get better rooms for free. And especially better service in general since there will only be field-accrued (or nearly field-accrued) statuses around.

TFC responds. I have the status, how does the hotel upgrade work.

It will also improve life for frequent flyers, because. official lounges will empty by at least a third if not more. The reason in this case is that not only will the cards to those who have taken advantage of automatic renewals expire, but all those travelers who post-pandemic have not started traveling again as before will no longer have the card that grants access to lounges, priority check-in and boarding counters.

Lounges will not empty

However, there will be no emptying of lounges, or at least not all lounges will be expected to empty out starting in January. Certainly vità will improve in the official lounges, where status or business class travel is required to gain access.

In some airlines, such as British Airways, Lufthansa, or American Airlines just to name a couple, it may be the case that many travelers with loss of status are downgraded lounges. In fact, these carriers offer two different types of lounges.

One for passengers who travel in business, or have an intermediate level of status, and one for those accessible exclusively to those with the highest level of status. Other companies, on the other hand, will see occupancy rates drop to the happiness of true Elite travelers.

Instead, the situation will get much worse in independent lounges, those where you get access through cards like the Priority pass, or American Express Platinum. Of course for us Italians it is not yet a big emergency, but in the U.S. it is a real disaster. The reason is simple: all the users who no longer have access to the official lounges will head to the independent ones with problems of overcrowding and long queues.

In conclusion

For travel in Italy, but also in Europe, I do not foresee any serious inconvenience. Certainly the issue will be accentuated in travel to the U.S., where the problem is growing, so much so that Delta first decided to eliminate lounge access for economy passengers even if in possession of the status. That is why it becomes even more important to try to be loyal to a company or to own a credit card that can help you have elite status, although unfortunately at the moment in Italy there are not great possibilities, but hopefully they will come soon ITA Airways' new American Express credit cards.

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