Is it only me? A very confused HON ...
 

I think I was a HON member for almost 8 years (interrupted 1 year because of a bad sickness), and honestly, even if I force my brain to the limits, I cannot find enough reasons to do anything to regain the status again.

As frequent-flyer I have very little basic needs:
1) flexible call-center
2) help in connection-flights
3) possibility to relax when I had to wait longer inbetween flight
4) privileges in bookings

When the HON program started, LH grow to excellences and became a reference point for customer service. For my own company I learned and copied a lot of them. But today I would fire my manager if he would take the HON program as a teaching model.

What changed:
1) Call-center.
Once upon a time, there was a group of LH-entusiastic employers in Kassel, who resolved you EVERYTHING, really EVERYTHING what could be a problem during your trip. I recall a case where I forgot that I needed a Visa for Cuba. LH doesn't fly to Cuba, but nevertheless on my arrival in the HON-Longue in FRA (I flow in from VCE), there was a Visa waiting for me!!

Beside those frequent miracles, you could call them from everywhere in the world, they recognized your cell and you could re-arrange your flights in just seconds. Today you need to remember: your Card, pin-code, booking or ticket- number and who knows what else. The excuse of higher data-security gave LH the possibility to reduce the service. I know for sure that the Law would offer the possibility that with my consensus they could keep the older service, but it would cost LH some money to change their computer-programs.

Btw, I never ever will understand that in 8 years LH was not able to set up a computer-program which takes into account that HON-members probably have two or more addresses (private, business ecc). Each time I have now to spell out my address again and again, once I change from private to business or viceversa.

BUT what (sorry reading Ladies) what pisses me off totally is that lately I discovered that the tickets sold via HON-Call-Center frequently are up to 20-25% higher in price then the same tickets sold on Internet. This is indeed the most outrageous way of discouraging the use of a service!

2) Help in connection flights
I probably always misunderstood this part of the service. I thought the limo-service was to help us to get easier in time to the next flight, but I learned that it was thought as a kind of image-carece. OK, it helped when I flow with the cutest girl of the company, but I rather would prefer to get into a Smart when I arrive from a intercontinental night-flight in the horrible C-Terminal (FRA) and need to get quickly to A for a connection-flight, but no, in that case you are just a nobody. LH doesn't get the mind together to image how much anger a HON can accumulate when he has to walk from C to A, and every step is a promise: NEVER AGAIN will i drop into the temptation to choose LH just fro the status-points!!!
Of course there are enough people who love that image-kick, but after so many years you just don't get that anymore, you want THE real service, not the caricature of a service!

3) possibility to relax when I had to wait longer in-between flight
Two words on the HON-Longues here. Nice, but after 8 years always the same buffet??? The other day I flow with two more employes via Munich and not being able to invite them into the Longue we went to eat at the Kaefer ...Ahhh...what a satisfaction! I forgot in this years how good some airport restaurants are:)))

4) privileges in bookings
Do we really have them? I don't even understand any more the differences between D, P, C, Y, Q, Z and what else are all around. The Call-Center has different, higher prices, and honestly as HON I thought to get things made easier. If I have to sit down and study to get to a level of knowledge like a travel-agent, then the LH manager again haven't understood the HON-Frequent-Flyer. Maybe its just me, but I expected that the HON status should help me to get the best I can for the price, I don't care the image around, and I definitely don't want to be overpriced by 20%!!

What else could I miss not being anymore a HON?
Help on arrival by escorts in unknown airports? Well I remember when once I arrived in Bankong and 2 LH employes came into the aircraft to help me with my handbags. Then while bringing me to the Transfer-Longue they asked me if I need some help in shopping. On my last trip to Bankong there was nobody.
Anyway, honestly I don't miss them really.

Empty seat next to you? Bahhh...

Preferred update from business to first? I may sound like a snob now, but I sleep better in business then in first; in first the ground is very thin and vibrates in many aircrafts when somebody is walking by. Also the seat-belts are shorter in First, so you can not turn and sleep sidewise, like in Business you can.

SEN-Card for your loved one? OK this is a benefit when you live in different places. I will miss this one.

Anything else??? NO!!!

So I decided this early spring to slow down with LH tickets. Indeed I'm somewhere over 300.000 now but with the flights I forecasted for the next 6 months I could still do it if somebody convinces me here WHY being a HON would be still an advantage today. I just cannot see any anymore.

Honestly...
a) you do not seem confused in the slightest way to me
b) you already pointed out the most important things
c) you already seem to have your mind made up ?

But: Without any knowledge about your preferred routes and your expectations probably nobody can really give proper advise if there are alternatives.

That said.. I just agree with your "rant above".

Interesting reflection....

It is true that LH has introduced many setbacks for their HONs in the last couple of years, but still HON is one of the best recognition FF program in the airline industry.

Lets say I'm 90% convinced that it just doesn't make sense to schedule your life and work to make it fit with the LH flight-route just to get the HON points! Because this is what is happening after a time, you program your holydays possibly where LH is landing and don't visit customer so often if LH doesn't have a destination there.

On the other side if after dropping out from the HON status I would see suddenly that LH is transferring HON passengers from Terminal C to A and offer full body massages for free in the HON-longues, and re-establish the original call-centers, then I would feel indeed very stupid that I stopped collecting HON-points.

I'm just curious how other HONs feel about the current situation and what they think will LH do in the next future.

Honestly I don't know of any other program where the call-center for the top clients try to sell you tickets up to 20% more expensive then the price on the company web-side for the same trip. Please correct me if I'm wrong, actually I would love to be wrong!!!

I never booked a ticket from the LH call center so I cannot comment on that. In general though I've learned that if I want to get the cheapest prices, no matter if flights or hotels, I need to book them myself online.

Regarding the HON status itself I agree that it is not as special as the airline is advertising it, specially since they keep on reducing benefits. It became completely ridiculous to call it "exclusive".

Nice small example is when you fly with LH or OS intra-Europe. There is no recognition of the status at all while on the other side flying LX I'm always being greeted by the purser and I get a bottle of water before take-off even when sitting in Y. A little effort that makes the big difference.

Escort on certain airports can be indeed useful to save time, one thing you can call "exclusive". Unfortunately you cannot count on it on every airport. Most idiotic at ZRH, they will not pick up a HON from an outside position unless he is flying to GVA.

Access to F lounges is nice, but SEN/Gold lounges are mostly ok too. HON Priority luggage is good but in many cases arrives with the "regular" Priority luggage so not really an advantage over SEN.

Bottom line is that they really have to get a grip make and HON again what it was and should be. Real benefits, real exclusivity. Otherwise it becomes an "exclusive" joke.

Operating a loyalty program where loyalty is not appreciated anymore is doing the opposite. No rocket science needed here.

I can second the disappointment expressed by the op. When Lufthansa introduced the changes to its program recently I first was quiet exited about the prospect of probably less HON members going forward and a re-focus to the old strngth of the product, but what I can monitor now is a true devaluation of the program. I agree that the call centre has become ridiculous and the days where they where there to help us are over - now they will only try to upsell you, screw fees out of you that don't even exist and they tend to try selling higher fares then necessary (For example: Whenever I can I try to book early to take advnatage of the A fares. Since a year no agent ever offered me an A fare for my routing - I always had to explicitly ask for it).
The intra Europe product is now so bad these days that I can't bear it anymore, in particular on longer flights. Recently on a flight to Beirut I got severe back problems and was suffering for days. I dreaded so much going back that I actually changed to Air France (an airline that I dont appreciate, but use on occasions to destinations other airlines dont fly to) in desperation for a decent seat (AF operates a 777 out of BEY). Where is the point to have a good connection service if the underlying product totally sucks (and this includes the C in longhaul, I tried the new product to Washington recently and it is a joke compared to most other airlines these days. I also dont like the LX C seat)? The new F is nice, but my experience in the past few months has been that it is also well booked and if you can't get an A fare it is just too expensive. Upgrades are not confirmed anymore (now that they only have eight seats to offer) and it has become rediculous to try using miles for F Awards - impossible on any of my private routes in the past year without being waitlisted until the day of departure (a risk not worth having, because there is a high chance you will be stuck on the slopy chair). So practically if you don't want to bear with them in C the miles are useless (I dont understand why they dont introduce vouchers you earn to be able to also book F Awards twice a year on revenue seats like other airlines do. so at least you would have a decent chance for a seat twice a year?).
The arrival Hon service at outstations is a hit and miss now, with hardly any station offering this service in any serious form.
Nice Lounges you can find with most airlines today, the FRA FCT is great, no question, but if you fly in F you get that anyway, so no need to concentrate on LH for HON.
Luckily BA has just this month returned to Dublin (through the BMI merger) with a C product and my experiences in the past few months with them on long haul (and their partners Cathay Pacific and LAN) has been excellent. Even though the transfer in Heathrow is a bit more cumbersome the onboard product is great if you want to sleep in both F and C. The CCR Lounge is very good if you have to wait and the Executive Club with the GGL service has far exceeded my expectations. Very comparable to the old Hon Line.

I am not HON, so have no way of confirming if this is true, but if this is true this is really pathetic of LH if true.

I would disagree with that. I am HON Circle for two years now and I am also PPS with SQ, and Emerald with both BA and QF. Comparing all of these programs, I think that SQ - while having the least published benefits - is treating me best. I am not really sure what the real HON perks over SEN are these days.

Hotline:
Lufthansa is now routing all HON calls (even those to the Frankfurt number) into their regular call centers. The employees have zero empowerment and often zero clue. They cannot help with anything but bookings and seat assignments and are not able to take care or follow up on anything else. My first question to the agents nowadays is about their location. If the answer is Istanbul, I politely excuse myself and hang up. BA and SQ still have dedicated teams for their top tier members. SQ is having a dedicated PPS coordinator I can contact directly, BA still has small team for BA Gold Guest List but LH has nothing at all for their HONs.

Response Time:
Contacting the HON Circle team by e-mail is the only way to raise anything and most of the times I have to send a chaser after one week to get an answer. Absolutely pathetic. All other airlines get back same day or the next working day.

Operational Upgrades:
Lufthansa is the only airline of the four that has discontinued upgrading by status and is only upgrading by booking class as of today. A base member in J gets the upgrade over the HON in C. Lufthansa doesn't upgrade award bookings. All other airlines still upgrade by status and include award tickets.

Mileage Awards/Upgrades:
Lufthansa has become an absolute pain in the ... to book upgrades or awards for First Class. Living in Singapore, I have similar problems with BA and QF and surprisingly SQ wins hands down: Their availability even on very busy routes in Business and First is great and if the online tool can only waitlist me, I give them a call and my seats are usually cleared the next day.


The HON Circle card is still the most prestigious card due to the high number of miles one does need to qualify. The 'aura' of the card is still there but it won't last forever. If you asked me where Lufthansa has 'vowed' me in the last 18 months, I couldn't come up with anything. If you asked me what went wrong or was outright pathetic, I could come up with a pretty long list.

SQ has delivered the best care and is pocketing most of my travel budget. Wasn't that what loyalty management was all about?

I was entertained in the gate lounge at Jakarta by the silliness of an HON + pretty helper stood waiting to be first on board the CGK SIN flight. As fate had it i was seated next to the HON, who was a sociable sort, but dominated our chat with complaints about LH in general and the HON service in particular.

The biggest complaint seemed to be that he'd been seated next to me. Nothing personal :D, he'd just expected an upgrade or at least an empty seat. I'd rather hoped for the same, but quite clearly his status fed him higher levels of expectation. Still, I was getting off in SIN, so hopefully he continued to MUC in isolation.

I came away from our conversation convinced that LH is handling the programme badly: presenting the status as an aspitational "prize" is silly - it attracts the wrong sort of passenger. I don't mean this in a mean-spirited way: it's simply that if you persuade people to make an effort to enter your club then you run the risk of creating intense disappointment and dissatisfaction if you do not deliver 100% on what is expected.

British Airways gets on with the same sort of programme much more quietly, managing to keep a core group of very high revenure generators happy with benefits and facilities that are (largely) unpublished.

Lufthansa clearly can't match the fairy-tale list of benefits it started out with. I'm sure the airline will claim its HON programme is "a victiim of its own success" by attracting too many members, and these over-loaded the system. But it would perhaps have been better if LH had concentrated on quietly looking after its best customers, and keeping their business, rather than selling an aspirational package they could never deliver to a wider membership.

By the way, are you sure it's the same ticket? Specially the same booking class? I have a hard time to believe they can make up individual prices.

I would not be surprised if they avoid selling/offering the lowest-fare ticket (aka P-class or saver). That's obviously not very customer friendly but they might sit on a policy that a HON as frequent traveller also needs to be able to rebook/cancel tickets, therefore P-Biz tickets are out of the game.

Yes I'm!!! If you speak German, here is the answer I got on my complain:

...bitten hierbei jedoch um Ihr Verständnis dafür, dass sie sich an die gegebenen Tarifstrukturen halten müssen. Abhängig vom jeweiligen Markt und der Buchungssituation können Onlineangebote günstiger sein, als wenn Sie telefonisch buchen. Die Mitarbeiter der Hotline haben bestimmte Zugriffsrechte, die ihnen andere Tarife anzeigen, als es online der Fall ist....

Now it is a semantic question if they invent additional price-classes to avoid to give the lower prices via call-center. The point is that they try to reduce the expenses of the service by lowering the quality.

To explain how it was in the past: I fly often from VCE via MUC/FRA to LAX. In the good old days it happened that the computer of the call-center didn't show up the Z-class on one route. In this cases the operator used to split the trip into two different sections, and most of the time I got the Z-class for both. NB, they used to offer it to go this way and it worked. They always looked to find the best prices for the HONs.

Now I want to underline that the online offer was made not by a 3th party, but by the LH own web-side. And the differences where always hundreds of euros and not the booking expenses.

Dreaming of a perfect world ;) ?

This is neither Thai in BKK nor does LH want to spend the extra dime..

This is outright pathetic and ridiculous at once. The retarded monkey that must have been pushing buttons randomly to create an answer consisting of a prefabric text did neither take care of the customers needs nor did he waste a single braincell on what this answer might create on the other side..
This exactly explains the situation they do have at the moment: A customer care that does not care..