Originally Posted by
KingBraden
Thanks for the reply.
Your original post BA is called out for their egregious fees I wanted to see other examples. AF and other european players seem to be more reasonable than LH on YQ (AF is around 400 in fees round trip US to CDG, Iberia charged around 200 last year in business).
But to compare mileage costs LH to delta isn't really fair. A diamond at Delta earns miles at twice the rate as an elite at LH. In general it looks like the European programs are just not as lucrative. Is there a specific reason for that? Are national carriers just too powerful to require strong loyalty programs?
LH Barclay's CC earns the same as DL AmEx. But it's an MC, so you can obviously earn a lot faster, and Barclay's always has lots of promos and offers (unlike AmEx) to speed up your earning. That is what really matters, considering that most miles are earned by CC spend and promotions, not by actual flying.
LH has a much stronger FFP than DL (no real devaluations for quite a few years, two open jaws + two stopovers per RT allowed), much more reasonable costs of awards, etc.). I think that other airlines just value their customers more and customer loyalty more and thus have stronger FFPs. DL's focus is clearly on infrequent leisure traveler market and DL doesn't care about the business or frequent travelers, and so it feels it doesn't need to do anything to be the choice of such higher spend pax. Other airlines, however, do more to once they get a customer, keep them. Just two very different management approaches.
As for the high fees, those came on when fuel prices rose and have stayed that way. That is a shady way how the YQ/YR fees have remained. That's just how it has played out competitively. It applies across the board to most airlines in other FFPs, esp. in EU. Four OZ flights RT? Still $1000+, vs $50~$75 in fees if booked using UA. At least it's consistent...but again that's just a cost of a much stronger FFP that allows open-jaws, stopovers, and doesn't keep devaluing the miles, while the earning is easier and quicker than that of DL. To me it's a price well worth paying for honesty, transparency, ethics plenty of notice of any changes (which are rare), and a much more usable, stronger FFP; in other words, the polar opposite of DL.