The frequent flyer rules of major airlines have changed frequently. I'm overwhelmed by the changes...

Hello, readers! I am K, a blogger at Kodensha.

As a matter of fact, the frequent flyer agreement of one of the major airlines has often been changed (travel? Oh, no?) It has been changed.

A long time ago, multiple countries and regions were grouped into one group (I believe it was called an area on their website), and it was possible to use award tickets using frequent flyer miles even if the outbound and inbound routes were different within that area.
It was only necessary to book a round-trip ticket, even if the outbound and inbound routes were not simply a round-trip between the two cities.

Not long ago, award tickets were limited to simple round-trips between two cities, and at the same time, one-way award tickets became available.
Naturally, the mileage required is for a one-way trip, so this was a reasonable change.

I remember that it was also around this time that telephone reservations and changes were made for a fee, so I was beginning to feel that the frequent flyer system was gradually getting tougher and tougher. (At this point, changes made on the company's website are free.)

However, the changes made in the second half of 2018 were even more formidable.
First, once (one trip? Enough already!) Once you have booked an award ticket, there is now a fee to change the reservation even from the web.
This is not good!
Even if you have a rough itinerary for your travel plans, you may not finalize your travel plans until closer to the date.
Especially when you are planning to use an award ticket for a major holiday, it is effective to secure a seat on a date that is available for now, and then fine-tune your itinerary by moving back and forth between dates and flights.

Mumm.

In addition to this, an even more frightening change in the rules has just recently occurred.

Until now, the mileage requirements for each area were uniformly set regardless of itinerary.
For example, a round-trip flight from Japan to Korea requires 15,000 miles, a round-trip flight to China requires 20,000 miles, and so on.
However, a new system has been introduced whereby mileage can be raised or lowered depending on the itinerary and availability of seats.
Specifically, a round-trip flight between Tokyo and Hong Kong departing on Saturday, April 27, 2019, and returning on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, would require 34,000 miles for the outbound and 13,000 miles for the inbound as of December 25, 2019.
This means that a round-trip trip would require 47,000 miles, more than double the amount of miles required under the previous system, and this is a "real" situation, isn't it?

This is no longer enough to be described as an ups and downs, but rather, a soaring level, isn't it?
Well, this is an improvement over the major spring holidays and the year-end and New Year holidays, which used to be designated as days when award tickets were not available.

In fact, there have been many problems with the company's website for some time, such as when I tried to make a new reservation on XXXXXX and the search results showed "seats available" for that itinerary, but when I tried to change my existing reservation to that date, it showed "no seats available".
I had to contact the call center several times.

I : When I tried to change the schedule on the web site, the behavior was very strange.
Operator : Ha-ha-ha!

I'm too funny, aren't I?

Well, since I alone had to call the call center several times to have reservations changed by hand instead of via the Web, maybe the cost of system modification and personnel expenses are no longer worth it?

So, for the time being, we will need to have the ability to put in our best guess at an itinerary for a date that is a little further in the future.
Then we will have to decide whether to pay the necessary fees to change the reservation or waste the miles as is.

In any case, as you would expect from a major company, they will come up with all sorts of measures to encourage the use (or disappearance) of miles.
However, they are not only making changes to the detriment of the customer, but also offering plans that make the customer think, "This is better! I am sure that they have a good marketing person or management team.

I am sure that you have excellent marketing and business planning staff.
If there are any of you reading this newsletter, I would like to say this out loud.

Come to our company!
(Including those of you who pride yourselves on having similar abilities.

So, please look forward to the next issue, and I will bring you more frequent flyer, travel, and business trip stories as soon as I have them.