lemieux66

AB has announced a relaunch of their Top Bonus program, bringing very decent improvements.
I´m happy now, that my gold status was prolongued till 2010
It starts 01.April:

You can find an overview of the new benefits here:

http://www.airberlin.com/site/tb/pro...cards-overview

Most important changes:

- More miles for low-fare flights
500 miles for domestic flights > 49 EUR without fare + taxes (79 EUR before)
1.000 miles for pan-European flights > 79 EUR (guess it was 119 EUR before, but not sure)

- Silver status can be achieved by having 24 flights / year

- 20% silver / 40% gold additional award- AND Status miles ^

- double miles for favourite flight route (silver / gold members)

- Security fast lane at many airports (silver / gold members) --- at MUC this really helps winning time ^

- for gold card holders miles never expire ^^^

- Priority boarding for silver / gold (don´t now how this is supposed to work)

So all in all, very good points, making life as AB-status-member more convenient.

I´m just missing the lounge at important airports, but this will start at least on the new comming Berlin-Airport in the further future.
We will see.

Tyrolean

Ah the segment rule that LH got rid off.
Very interesting. I hope LH will follow...

Flying Lawyer

This is more or less enhancing the 2007 enhancements away....

From what I see is this more or less a new program and it can be pretty much attractive if you use them regulary on certain routes within Europe as I do eg. on DUS-VIE. If the ticket is more than 79 Euro and you make use of the new route-double-mileage promotion, a single flight scores 2400 Miles. A Business Class flight DUS-NYC cost 37.500 miles, a domestic flight within Germany costs still 7.500 miles.

Not bad at all.

sindjic

Does LH even consider AB competition? I would love if they actually match it...

Rambuster

Please wake up from the trip you are on and stop taking those pills !

Felixberlin

As discussed in several media:

http://atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=15953

Good news as AB may come closer to gaining critical mass. Mainly the Italy and Austria routes should benefit from stronger sales and the integration into ABs hubs in DUS/BER.

(Hoping for double daily BER-SZG)

sindjic

Sorry about that! I must have been abducted by aliens or something...

lemieux66

#

No, I don´t think so.
Air Berlin tried hard to expand their flight routes, taking over DBA, LTU and Condor, when due to the ecconomic crisis the AB-comany value dropped down as well as passanger figures.
From that moment on, routes have been canceld dramatically, the Condor deal bursted and AB was stopped in trying to attack LH.

Guess, they are happy, if LH lets AB live a peaceful live within it´s niche the next 1-2 years and AB can survive the hard times.

Flying Lawyer

I got my first miles under the new regime on my DUS-TXL route:

01.04.2009 AB 6441 Q TXL DUS 500 500
01.04.2009 AB 6441 Q TXL DUS 500 0
01.04.2009 AB 6441 Q TXL DUS 200 200

For a 77 Euro ticket this is not bad at all considering their good spending rates. And further enhancements are there:

• Exit seats are only given to Gold Card holders at airport check in
• They installed a working fast track concespt in TXL and DUS.

They will definitely see mee more frequently (again) when travelling on cheap and ultra cheap fares! LHs E class o/w got by far less attractive now, so its back to AB.

Flying Lawyer

They are successfully attacking on the domestic and european routes. I certainly like their product with a 737 or 320 out of DUS more than a LH regional jet....

lemieux66

Regarding the newfast lanes:
It´s a phantastic improvement, if the fast lanes are controled by an AB-employee. Otherwise, if nobody checks the passangers these tracks are as crowded as all others.

Example of last friday (beginning of easter school-holidays in Germany):

- Flight in the morning MUC - FMO: Fast line monitored by AB-employe!
Waiting time at this line was zero compared to approx. 10 - 15min at the regular lines

- Flight back in the afternoon FMO - MUC: Fast line was not controlled, so it was the same lenght and same waiting time (about 10 min.) as all the other lines. I doubt that more than 10% of all passangers in front of my in the fast line had official permission to use it.
No use, installing fast lanes, when it´s not conrolled by anybody

lemieux66

But I like the new AB-Point system.
Two domestic flights, 2.400 points

Datum Aktivität Prämienmeilen Statusmeilen
03.04.2009 AB 6076 Q MUC FMO 500 500
03.04.2009 AB 6076 Q MUC FMO 200 200
03.04.2009 AB 6081 D FMO MUC 1.000 1.000
03.04.2009 AB 6081 D FMO MUC 400 400

Felixberlin

As expected, German cartel office to open investigation first.

Article in German:

http://www.airliners.de/news/artikel...rticleid=18061

lemieux66

as always.

Hope I can start colleting topbonus points on my Tui-flights soon :-)

Flying Lawyer

After a few AB flights last week I want to post a quick update on the (real) enhancements:

• Priority lanes work pretty well
• so does priority boarding
• exit row reservation works pretty well and they re-seat you when equipment changes happen.
• exit rows appear to be no longer available to check-in agents without entering a gold card number
• they introduced a very good newspaper and magazine selection at their Berlin gates
• 2500 miles for a cheap 120 Euro Berlin return is very good value for money (miles, Gold bonus and route bonus) compared to Lufthansa's 370