Originally Posted by
intuition
I am curious about this part. Why was Finnair your best choice until 150k?
Not trying to pick anything apart, just want to understand. Finnair obviously is a part of your mix for some reason and fulfils your needs for some trips. Was that reason mainly to get platinum perks *) or was there other major reasons too?
And flying other airlines and credit other programs - was that mainly to get status on those programs or were there other reasons? Like niksal said, Schedule, price, destinations, contracts, et.c?
And with introduction of Lumo (and I totally get the Clooney thing) you switched *A flights to AY. I assume you lost/will lose perks with airlines/programs - did you feel that it was a minor loss? ie you look to have most of your future travel on AY/OW and don't see the need for other alliances anymore?
*) And believe me I see nothing wrong with that - I credit 150k to Finnair solely for status reasons.
For me it's a combination of things why I fly AY a lot. I go to Asia a few times a year, and from central Europe AY offers the best price/quality ratio in my experience. AY A350 business class is very comfortable, and even the feeder 320 series have been very nice to fly lately, with onboard wifi and good meals. Add to this the possibility of having a stopover in Helsinki for a day or two, to visit family and friends and take care of things, and it's a natural match. So something like 200k-250k miles with AY a year comes almost naturally without really trying. Last year was a perfect fit for a Lumo run because I had a friend living in China that year and I flew to a few new Chinese destinations because of the opportunity to meet her and have her be my guide since she speaks Chinese. It also wasn't taking anything away from my *A status since it was an in-between year with no mileage runs needed (SEN status lasts two years).
I probably won't renew Lumo anytime soon, but since it was within reach I figured let's try it once. This year I need to do some *A runs to keep my status as well so I'll just quietly drop back to ordinary platinum.