See what airlines are doing to protect your elite status

April 28, 2020

It’s the question on the minds of elite fliers the world over: What’s to become of my airline miles and elite status if I can’t fly for a portion of 2020?

Frequent fliers — many who exercise extreme loyalty to their chosen airline — are now finding out if the love affair is a reciprocal relationship. While some airlines have chosen to remain mum, many major carriers are making moves to protect their best customers.

But there are definite winners and losers in the 2020 mileage game. The fine print for each decision varies and, in some cases, is painstakingly long. And, some airlines are revising their status announcements (for the better) mere weeks later.

Check back if your carrier’s announcement was on the stingier side.

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Decent: Lowered requirements and free points

Aer Lingus is said to be emailing members of its elite flyer program, AerClub, with news of automatic credits ranging from 25 to 350 points, depending on the membership tier level. Estimates suggest bonus points are equal to approximately 33% of the points needed to maintain yearly status.

British Airways is reducing status point thresholds by 30% for members up for renewal in April, May and June. Certain vouchers, earned through BA credit cards, are also being automatically extended for six months. The concessions were sent via email to select customers.

Etihad Airways is giving monthly bonus Tier miles to all members from March to May. How many isn’t exactly clear; the company website states amounts are “calculated as a monthly average of miles members earn flying with Etihad Airways and are required to maintain their existing Tier.”

Two additional perks? The airline is giving double Tier miles for all flights taken between March 1 and July 31, 2020 and up to 5,000 bonus Guest miles and $400 for those who opt for credit for flights canceled during this time.

Better: Status extensions

The holy grail of elite flyer airline announcements is the automatic elite status extension. However, these announcements are not created equal.

Less than a year:

Emirates Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members (but notably not Blue) whose membership reviews come before September of this year will have their status extended until Dec. 31, 2020. Members with reviews before March 1, 2021 receive 12-month status extensions with a caveat; they must meet 80% of the usual travel requirements. Additionally, miles expiring at any point in 2020 are being extended until year end.

In an email to members, Turkish Airlines announced a six-month extension for all elite status holders. Members can also purchase double the amount of miles this year. Details are scarce though passengers are reportedly able to view the updated expiration dates by logging into their Miles & Smiles accounts.

While embroiled in a high-profile struggle to stay afloat, Virgin Atlantic is extending the status of Silver and Gold Flying Club members by six months. Qualifying companion, upgrade and clubhouse vouchers are also being extended by half a year.

At least one year:

After initially offering free monthly bonus points, Cathay Pacific one-upped itself and is now granting a simple 12-month status extension to memberships expiring this year. Lounge passes and other similar benefits are being extended for 12 months too.

After initially announcing reduced tier thresholds, Flying Blue — the loyalty program for Air France, KLM and a number of smaller airlines — reversed course and is now extending members’ elite status by 12 months. The extension applies to memberships set to expire before February 2021. Explorer members’ miles are being extended through the end of 2020 too.

One of the first carriers to issue status extensions, Qantas is automatically granting 12-month extensions to elite memberships that expire before February 2021. Fliers do not need to take four flights per year, as is the usual rule, to receive it. Qantas stated it will not send new physical membership cards, though elite members can find the updated expiration dates on their digital cards.

Like Qantas, Qatar Airways’ loyalty program, Privilege Club, is “extending or reinstating” tier statuses for 12 months for memberships that expire before Jan. 31, 2021. Additional privileges, such as preferred seating guarantees and extensions on upgrades, extra baggage and lounge access, are being rolled out for elite members too.

Singapore Airlines is renewing elite memberships for one year and PPS and Elite Gold Rewards (that expire in the second half of this year) are being extended to March 31, 2020. Krisflyer miles that expire between now and August are being extended by six months. Comprehensive details — the most of any airline listed — are available on the company’s website.

Extensions into 2022:

Air Canada is automatically extending all Altitude statuses to the end of 2021, which technically is one day short of 2022. But the blanket offer is so generous, we are including it here. Members who have already achieved status for the next year (or who do so by the end of 2020) can give it to a friend or family member. Plus, the airline’s loyalty program, Aeroplan, launched a “Travel at Home” program which allows members to earn miles and status by making purchases at Apple Music, Bose and eBay, to name a few, or through donations made to coronavirus-related charities (the latter through April 30).

As the first U.S. airline to announce program status extensions, Delta Air Lines elite members can retain their current status through Jan. 31, 2022. Medallion Qualification Miles from 2020 can be rolled into 2021, and select memberships, upgrade certificates and $200 travel vouchers are being extended, among a number of other updates to its program.

Similar to Delta, United Airlines is extending elite status for all Premier members through Jan. 31, 2022. The airline is also reducing threshold qualifications for 2021 by a full 50% making it easier for flyers to reach higher tiers. Qualifying PlusPoints, annual membership and subscription benefits are being extended by six months. Electronic travel certificates can be used for up to 24 months from the date of issue, making this one of, if not the most generous program announcements to date.

American Airlines’ announcement came a bit late for some, but when it did it was ample. In lockstep with Delta and United, the airline is automatically extending the status of all elite members until Jan. 31, 2022. The airline is also reducing requirements to meet elite status tiers — not quite as much as United but still an appreciable amount — while throwing in vacation package credits and a number of other perks.

Awaiting word

Lufthansa has not made any status announcements to date, though one appears to be coming. The website for the company’s Miles & More frequent flier program states: “The Lufthansa Group airlines will be offering goodwill gestures for retaining status over the course of the year and will keep all frequent flyers informed.”

Additionally, the company has announced that the Miles & More program, which also services passengers on Austrian Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines, is changing its status program effective Jan.1, 2021 to a simplified, more transparent points-based system.

Credit: CNBC Africa

Creative Steps for Franchises to Survive

April 28, 2020

The current coronavirus crisis and its economic impact is a colossal curveball that nobody could have anticipated, and if you’re a franchise owner, it has likely turned your world upside down.

Challenging as these times are, there are several concrete steps that franchise owners can take to help survive the current environment.

For starters, right now is a great time for franchisees to go through their P&L statement with a fine-tooth comb and look for any non-essential services that they don’t need or can cut. When times are good, you might have someone coming once a month to wash your windows or mow your lawn. Maybe you have someone coming in every two weeks to sharpen your knives.

Guess what? If there ever was a time to perform those services yourself instead of paying someone else to do it, it’s now. When the economy is up and running again, you can go back to outsourcing these tasks, but you’re in survival mode right now.

Look for relief everywhere

Similarly, if you have anyone on retainer — a lawyer, an accountant, a marketing firm — give them a call and see what they can do about monthly retainer fees. Are they able to dial down the monthly amount, or otherwise tweak the arrangement? What can they do for you?

You’ll also want to call your landlord to see what kind of relief they can offer. For instance, many landlords did not require April rent to be paid by the first of the month and instead allowed that payment to be spread out across the term of the lease.

Are you paying general liability insurance, even though your locations are closed and you don’t have any customers coming onto your property who could potentially file a lawsuit? Call your insurance company and see what they can do for you as far as waiving payments or crediting you for future months.

Making these types of calls should not, even for a second, give you pause, because nobody – and that includes your vendors and service providers – wants to lose customers or tangle around in court right now. They’ll be willing to work something out with you.

Put a premium of creativity

Next, franchisees should look at their own operations and see if there are creative ways to make the most of an adverse situation. Do you have a bunch of food and inventory that’s going to go to waste because you can’t move it? Donate it to a local food bank or charity organization. It’s not just a good act – you can get some positive press for your business and maybe even reduce your tax liability through a write-off. Not a bad ROI for a bunch of inventory that you can’t utilize that would otherwise be thrown out.

Creativity also means looking at this crisis and seeing if there’s an opportunity to meet people’s needs in a new way. For example, some supermarkets have been putting people to work wiping down shopping carts as a competitive differentiator. Gas stations have been offering full-service gas pumping so that customers don’t have to touch a potentially contagious gas pump or touchscreen.

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What’s the equivalent in your particular business that you can offer customers to make them more comfortable and more willing to spend their money with you? Maybe it’s offering some kind of contactless pickup or delivery. Don’t be afraid to “steal” ideas that have been successful in other industries or businesses and then implement a version of it in your own business. A successful idea is, frankly, a good idea to replicate.

While you’re focusing on surviving this crisis, never forget that at some point – some glorious day in the not too distant future – the pandemic will have passed, the lockdown will be lifted, and the gears of the economy will start turning again. Now is the time to start thinking about how you will respond during this ramping up period.

That might mean rearranging your dining room from 50 seats to 30 seats because some states will have strict social distancing requirements in place for restaurants once they start letting businesses reopen. Start planning and preparing for this next phase today, so that you’re ahead of the game once your doors can finally swing open.

Look to the mothership for help

Amidst all of this activity, your franchisor can be a valuable resource. They are, after all, the experts in how to operate your concept and the different ways it can be configured or adapted.

Any good franchisor will offer flexibility in how the model can operate, enabling a franchisee to try something a little different. For example, if you’ve traditionally been a lunch and dinner destination, but there are too many other businesses trying to sell “to go” lunches and dinner packs right now, you might want to try selling breakfasts instead. There should be an ongoing two-way dialogue between franchisee and franchisor to spark creative ideas and solutions.

The franchisor can also provide creativity from a financial standpoint. Let’s say your establishment is still open as a to-go business, but sales are down 40%. For the month of April, your franchisor might be able to take your top-line royalty payment down by 40%. Alternatively, they might be able to temporarily waive support fees or marketing royalties for the months that you’re impacted by the ongoing crisis.

Your franchisor wants you to stay afloat and to succeed — and how they treat you will tell you who you’re in business with, both in the challenging times we currently face, as well as the brighter days ahead.

CREDIT: Entrepreneur

How air pollution worsen Covid-19

April 28, 2020

There’s a murky relationship between air pollution and coronavirus, which may mean that tackling air pollution will be a crucial part of easing lockdown.

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Clear blue skies over the world’s megacities have become a visible mark of the pandemic. It’s a welcome change for many, not least because outdoor air pollution kills around 4.2 million people worldwide each year.

But when it comes to Covid-19, these risks to respiratory health are not the sum of their parts; researchers in the US are building a case that suggests air pollution has significantly worsened the Covid-19 outbreak and led to more deaths than if pollution-free skies were the norm. As well as predisposing the people who have lived with polluted air for decades, scientists have also suggested that air pollution particles may be acting as vehicles for viral transmission.

These new findings could have a significant impact on how governments choose to ease lockdowns in the coming months, as scientists say that improving air quality could play an important role in overcoming the pandemic.

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One recent study found that even small increases in fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, have had an outsized effect in the US. An increase of just 1 microgram per cubic metre corresponded to a 15% increase in Covid-19 deaths, according to the researchers, led by Xiao Wu and Rachel Nethery at the at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The evidence we have is pretty clear that people who have been living in places that are more polluted over time, that they are more likely to die from coronavirus – Aaron Bernstein

For comparison, the safe limit designated by the US’s Environmental Protection Agency is 12 micrograms PM2.5 per cubic metre, while the World Health Organization has a guideline figure of 10 micrograms per cubic metre as an annual mean. Parts of New York have annual PM2.5 levels consistently above this safe threshold. Researchers suggest that this could have played a part in the scale of New York State’s coronavirus outbreak, with deaths as of April by far the highest of any state.

“The evidence we have is pretty clear that people who have been living in places that are more polluted over time, that they are more likely to die from coronavirus,” says Aaron Bernstein, the director of the Center for Climate, Health, and Global Environment at Harvard University.

In the study, which looked at 3,080 counties in the US, people who had lived in counties with long-term pollution exposure for 15-20 years had significantly higher mortality rates, says Wu.

While the study has yet to be peer-reviewed by independent experts, Wu says that the association is likely down to the higher risk of existing respiratory and heart diseases in areas of higher pollution. Air pollution is also known to weaken the immune system, compromising people’s ability to fight off infection, according to the European Public Health Alliance.

“If Manhattan had lowered its average particulate matter level by just a single unit, or one microgram per cubic meter, over the past 20 years, the borough would most likely have seen 248 fewer Covid-19 deaths by this point in the outbreak [4 April 2020],” the researchers conclude.

A study of air quality in Italy’s northern provinces of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna also found a correlation between Covid-19 mortality rates and high levels of pollution. Lombardy makes up the vast majority of the country’s deaths, at 13,325 of Italy’s 26,644 as of 26 April, while Emilia Romagna was the province with the next greatest death toll, at 3,386. The researchers questioned the role of low air quality in their becoming hotspots, concluding that: “the high level of pollution in northern Italy should be considered an additional co-factor of the high level of lethality recorded in that area”.

You could pick any city in the world and expect to see an effect of air pollution on people’s risk of getting sicker from coronavirus – Aaron Bernstein

These are not the first studies to highlight a substantial link between air pollution levels and deaths from viral diseases. A 2003 study found that patients with Sars, a respiratory virus closely related to Covid-19, were 84% more likely to die if they lived in areas with high levels of pollution.

“For every small increment in air pollution, there’s a substantial increase in death,” says Harvard’s Aaron Bernstein. “You could pick any city in the world and expect to see an effect of air pollution on people’s risk of getting sicker from coronavirus.”

What’s more, another preliminary study detected Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) could even be hitching a ride on PM10 particles – the same stuff as PM2.5, just in slightly larger particles. The researchers, based at several universities across Italy, suggest the virus could be dispersed more widely on air pollution particles. But, like much research on coronavirus so far, this study too has yet to go through robust peer-review.

Minorities most affected

These findings could have a significant impact on how governments choose to ease lockdown restrictions and public health officials allocate medical resources such as ventilators.

Dirty air is preventing people of colour, in low-income communities in particular, from being able to have a fighting chance against this pandemic – Gina McCarthy

In the short-term, the findings could incentivise polluted countries which have not yet suffered severe outbreaks to adopt preventive measures. “They could take extra precautions, for example more stringent social distancing measures,” Wu suggests.

The Harvard researchers say their findings are particularly important for poor minority communities, who tend to be more exposed to air pollution, contributing to a higher risk of becoming seriously ill from coronavirus. (Read more about the racial disparities of Covid-19)

In the US, some ethnic minorities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution, primarily caused by the consumption by white Americans, according to a 2018 study. Black and Hispanic people are typically exposed to 56% and 63% more PM2.5 pollution than they produce through consumption and daily activities. In sharp contrast, non-Hispanic white people are typically exposed to 17% less pollution than they produce. African Americans are also more likely than white Americans to have underlying health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, a disparity linked to a long legacy of social inequality.

Today we recognise that the world can change on a dime – Gina McCarthy

“Dirty air is preventing people of colour, in low-income communities in particular, from being able to have a fighting chance against this pandemic,” says Gina McCarthy, president of the Natural Resources Defence Council in the US.

Lifting lockdown

As lockdowns have shut down factories and kept cars off the roads, global pollution levels have fallen drastically. According to this year’s Air Quality Index, cities with historically high levels of PM2.5 have witnessed a dramatic drop in pollution since enforcing lockdowns; 44% in Wuhan, 54% in Seoul and 60% in New Delhi.

But scientists have said the fall in polluting emissions is just a short-term result and that air quality is likely to worsen again as lockdowns are lifted if we return to business as usual. Pollution levels must be limited as much as possible to minimise the effects of a second wave of coronavirus, they warn.

“The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis,” the researchers write.

“We cannot get out of this crisis with the same levels of pollution. It has to be a green recovery,” says Maria Neira, director of environment, climate change and health at the World Health Organization.

The Harvard study has highlighted the close link between emissions and public health and notes how both can stall economic growth. The reduction of pollution should be framed not just as an important benefit to public health, but as a major economic incentive, says Neira. “If we go back to the former economic development that will be creating a massive health problem and a massive economic problem at the same time,” Neira says.

Governments should take the scientific findings on board when deciding how to ease the lockdowns, says Neira. “We need to avoid the temptation, in the name of the recovery of the economy, to go back to intensive use of fossil fuels or intensive use of cars,” she says.

Some cities have hatched plans to avoid this. Milan, which lies in Italy’s worst-hit region of Lombardy, plans to emerge from the lockdown with cleaner transport options in place. “The aim is to ensure the virus spreading containment through soft and sustainable mobility solutions,” Milan’s mayor Giuseppe Sala. “It is key that [lifting the lockdown] does not result in an excessive use of private cars, with a consequent increase in air pollution.”

To deter people from getting in their cars, Milan will create 35km of new cycle paths to make cycling and scooter transport more accessible. Milan metro will only run at 30% capacity to allow for social distancing, reducing the number of passengers it can carry from 1.4 million to 400,000 people.

It is crucial that governments invest in a more sustainable society, experts say. “Today we recognise that the world can change on a dime,” McCarthy said. “We have to invest those stimulus dollars towards a better future [and] be prepared to respond to pandemics like this.”

The global response to Covid-19 should be harnessed to create a healthier society, one that is better prepared for emergencies, according to Neira.

“After the masks are gone, we will breathe cleaner,” she says.

CREDIT: BBC