Lots of changes coming to Jet Privilege

I was in meetings all day today, and I read AJ's piece on Live From a Lounge, about the JP program going south. My heart stopped. I immediately got down to doing some surreptitious checking of the mileage burn requirements from my perspective, and slowly, the heart rate started to inch back to normal. That's because despite AJ's take on it at the time (all of which was very well founded) I actually noticed quite a few positive changes to the redemption requirements.

I then re-engaged in my meeting and forgot all about this, and even took a flight in the evening. On arrival, the first thing I saw was AJ's updated post, about JP being enhanced. And just now, as I settled in to do some more research and write about it, I received the email from Jet, that AJ's post referenced.

So things are indeed afoot at JP. For some time now, I've held the view that it was only a question of time before the JP program was devalued. The earn and burn requirements have been consistent (barring very very few minor changes) for as long as I can remember, and the Etihad deal (both their investment in Jet and their takeover of the JP program) were, to my mind, enough reasons for any shrewd business to devalue JP miles. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the net intent of these changes. Note, that all of this is effective 1 August 2014. 

So, what is changing?

Earnings

To begin with, the earning structure is being made a bit more friendly, even if it takes a couple of reads to understand it well. The biggest change is that Ticketed Point Mileage (or TPM, calculated by International Air Transport Association (IATA) and defined as the distance between an origin point and destination point using direct, non-stop sector miles) - will no longer be the basis for earnings, on short flights ie those under 500 miles TPM. So, flights of under 500 miles will earn a minimum of 500 JP miles on Jet Airways, and 375 JP miles on Jet Konnect (both 9W and S2 flights). Here are some examples, the email from JP:

This is good news for those who fly shorter flights. I myself have an average of at least 20 one way flights a year on the MAA-BLR or return sector, which would normally earn me only about 168 miles a flight, or 3,360 miles for those 20 flights together. Now, I will stand to earn up to 10,000 miles. That's almost three times what I would have earned in the earlier scheme of things, which makes this brilliant!

That's for economy class bookings. Business class (Premiere) and First Class will earn cabin bonuses.

However, cabin bonus %s were earlier dependent on your tier in the JP program - 125% for platinums and 100% for others in First class, and 60% for plats and 50% for others in business class. That'll now change, to a uniform cabin bonus of 100% for first class and 50% for business class travel.

So in summary, earnings on Jet Airways flights are:

Earnings on Jet Konnect flights are:

And earnings on codeshare flights are:

You can read more about the new accrual structure here.

Redemptions

In his post, AJ reported two things that I found to be relevant and interesting:

• The YQ fuel surcharge will go away. Redemptions will therefore attract only taxes and fees. If this approach is applied consistently, then I'll be quite glad to shell out those extra miles. The reason for this is, historically Jet's international redemptions have been a bit of a scam. In an earlier post, I made this point about how the cash component was so high, it just wasn't worth the redemption at all (you nearly could buy an economy class ticket with the cash component - it was that high!).
• Domestic redemptions (at least) will be targeted to be priced at a fixed ratio of 11:1, ie, the redemption requirement will be 11 times the miles earned on a given sector. Historically, it has been inconsistent and quite high. For instance, MAA-BOM currently requires 8,500 miles for a one-way award ticket, but earns you only 644 miles per flight (a ratio of over 13:1), and MAA-DEL requires 15,000 miles against an earning of 1097 miles (close to 14:1). Making award mileage requirements consistent will be a really good thing, even if it means we will likely be seeing fewer promotions like this one, for 20-50% discounts on award tickets.

I must mention, from what little I spotted during the window when Jet seems to have erroneously loaded the new requirements, that there were some positives and some irregularities. Here's what I can remember:

• There was a definite reduction of miles required for domestic awards, for many segments (remember, I only checked those that were relevant to me, so this isn't necessarily representative of all sectors).
• There was a significant increase in miles required for international awards, though the YQ fuel surcharge had been cut out. So for instance, I saw something in the region of 40k miles required for a one way BOM-LHR economy class ticket (compared to 27k as of now), but with a cash component of Rs 19k ex-BOM and Rs 30k ex-LHR (the latter still seems quite high, though!).
• There wasn't much difference in the cash component, between economy and business class, for international awards.
• There were also some very apparent screw-ups. On BOM-LHR, for instance, business class awards required something like 85k miles, whereas first class needed only 81k miles (which is the same as it is today). I'm guessing this is a glitch, and I'm doing JP a favour by bringing this out, as a return for all the good news they've just given us!

Strangely, though, they seem to have reset their systems (to bring back to current state) in a haphazard way. So as of now, while redemptions show the correct mileage requirements, the cash component (taxes, fees and surcharges) are being displayed in US$ rather than in Indian Rupees, even for domestic awards (though it isn't necessarily any more expensive).

Conclusion

There's certainly a lot that I'm happy about, with the new and proposed changes. However, I'd also like to see more availability of award seats, and also a quicker and more efficient way to use miles for upgrades. I also think Jet makes it too painful a process to redeem awards on partner airlines. While I can see some technical reasons for this, a minimum two week booking window with a no-refund policy for cancellations isn't always practical for redemptions.

The other thing I keep thinking about these days, is the Air India-Star Alliance effect on Jet. AI joining Star Alliance opens up a broader field of play for redeeming AI miles. Also, Jet will end up losing some of its partner airlines, who are Star Alliance members. On the other hand, AI's mileage earnings are heavily dependent on fare class, which is something Jet comes up trumps on. I get the feeling that some of these changes are, therefore, in response to these recent events, and Jet is doing its best to retain its frequent flier customer base.

I can never tire of saying it these days, but we're in for some really interesting times in the Indian aviation space. I will certainly keep an eye out for more JP changes, which seem to have been promised. Until then, start planning those award redemptions!