I feel we are border-line off-topic, and I hesitated before making more comments (and if we are deemed OT then please fork).

But this has some bearing on Lumo, as the "there are too many X" and the "it is too easy to acquire Y" intensified when Finnair added this new tier.
We will all have our own views on what is easily achieved. Someone flying many segments sitting on 58Ö feels he is doing a hard job flying every day/week and thinks it is much easier to fly 3-4 longhauls in business. Someone flying 3-4 longhauls thinks he is doing a hard job getting the monies to do so and battling constant jetlag and time away from home. Naturally looking with envy towards the shorthauler.

On this we will likely never come into agreement.

However, I'd like to explain why I think we end up here. From my view as somewhat experienced with managing loyalty over the last 12 years, there is a dissonance in Finnair plus. It has been there for a long time, but it became very apparent when Lumo was introduced.

While we can't agree on tiers or points being easy, we can probably agree on that by design a loyalty program should be designed so that achiving a specific tier should be as easy/hard regardless of how it is done. A tier is a tier is a tier, right? It must be the design goal that tier X is awarded travellers of similar importance to the company.

Let's say Silver is the base line, which needs effort 1 to achieve. Now, as Finnair wants qualifications by points and segments parallel, they need to define the value of effort 1 in both points and segments. They ended up with 30 000p = effort 1; 20 segments = effort 1. And for effort 2, they ended up with 30 000p and 46 segments respectively.

Logic has it that one unit of effort is equal to another unit of effort. So we should now be able to deduce the points and segments needed equal to any unit of effort. And here is where the dissonance kicks in, as it is not at all linear.

Qualifying for Lumo by points requires 15 times the effort of silver, while it only requires 7,5 times the effort on segments. Regardless of what you think is easy and hard, it takes twice the effort to qualify for Lumo by points compared to qualifying by segments.




OK, you say, Silver can't be used as the base line because Finnair decided to skew the table for some reason. OK, let's use gold as base-line. So we assume it is supposed to be as "easy" to earn gold by points as it is to earn it by segments.
Well, that makes silver and gold to be pretty equal in a larger view, but Lumo is 5,6 times the effort of Gold by points, while it is only 3,3 times the effort on segments.





And this dissonance goes on, even if we hold Platinum as the standard level. The new scale makes the rest of the program tiers look pretty equal, but it still takes 3 times the effort to qualify for Lumo on points when it only takes 2 times the effort if you qualify on segments.







So regardless of you think it is more difficult to ask the boss for 76 tickets or to ask for 8000 monies, there is no denying Finnair skewed the entire program in favour of marginal segments. As you climb the ladder, segments are more and more valuable. If you qualify on segments and double your flying (fly twice as much and pay twice as much) you are awarded more that then points qualifier when he/she fly twice as much and pay twice as much.

Regardless of what tier you achieved, getting to next tier always requires much more effort if you qualify by points than on segments.

It is this that sparks the debate, not the desire to cut someone's benefits.

And if FA says "there are so many platinums", "it is good there is a new higher level" and knows several persons running for lumo, it is clear that this dissonance has been picked up by people, both travellers and employees.

The message is clear to me too. Finnair values people flying many cheap shorthaul segments over people flying a handful expensive longhauls. To me as a loyalty professional it seems stupid, but I am sure they have their reasons.

But when the discourse is that it is too easy to reach platinum but no recognition that segments are the anomaly, then I need to object.