I think this should be the right forum to ask this question. A few days ago I was discussing the new trend airlines like LH start to kick off. No more miles for low class Y fares, fewer miles for full fare C fares etc. I remember my first long distance international flight about 7 years ago or so on JAL (yes, I'm not only young at heart... ). That was the first time I actually thought about FFPs and the idea of free trips got me hooked. However, even 7 years ago I didn't receive any miles for my flight from Europe to Australia because the booking class must have been too low. Of course, I didn't know about FT back then and had no idea what a booking class was!

I never set a foot onto a JAL plane since and certainly they have lost me as a customer. This may not sound too extreme to most of us. After all, that's why we all read FT and are crazy for miles, right? BUT it got me thinking and that's why I would like to ask that question:

How many passengers (in %) on an average international flight today will credit the miles of that particular flight to a frequent flyer program? Would 60% be too high?

I'm asking this because I would like to know what the impact for airlines such as LH could be after they've implemented their devaluation to the FFP. If less than 20% of passengers on any given flight care about miles, well then LH is probably just not that much interested in those. They might figure that only 5% of customers will actually turn away or maybe they are even that "proud" of their changes that they don't consider any customer to stop flying LH.

I don't know how many members we currently have at FT, but certainly we do care about our miles. The question is whether we have any impact or whether we are just a tiny group without influence. After all, how many of us can choose their airlines for business travel? I pay for all my flights myself and I will certainly avoid flying carriers like LH in the future if I can. But this might be an exception and will have absoluetly no impact on LH (well, they might even be better off without me as a customer ...).

So, anyone with any insight into the percentage of mileage collecting passengers around the world? How can airlines get away with these changes if we are their best and most loyal customers?