I would say all Plats are equal - it´s a kind of communism. I don t care as long I sit on 1A.

I honestly don't understand the reasoning behind this argument we are having here. Do I really care how others qualify for their Platinum tier? Not the least. We all have our own personal "strategy" and we follow whatever works for each of us. I am personally "in-between" the two above mentioned extremes (3 ex-EU long haul J vs. segment qualification). I do qualify (barely) based on tier points, but that only includes 1 paid J ex-EU LH, the rest are excruciating LH flights in Y (many times with CX to Asia, to maximise earnings, so travel time is 25-30h) and the occasional short haul Y flights intra EU.

FOR ME this works out the best, as I rarely travel for work, so the whole craziness comes out of my own pocket. Could I get platinum card cheaper? Yes, sure, with ARN or OUL return flights, but looking at how much time that would require spending with flying, FOR ME it does not worth it. Would it be faster to earn it with only paid J? Yeah, but I cannot afford that...

We all get the same treatment (for better or worse) from AY, there is no differentiation based on how you have earned your status. It doesn't look like there are "too many platinum card holders" overall, as (to our knowledge,) AY is not planning a devaluation of the programme. I understand that you might feel otherwise inside the congested lounges at HEL, but that is not the fault of having too many members qualifying for status (that was fixed with silvers losing lounge access), but instead not having the appropriate size facilities to support the operation. At least the non-Schengen side will get now an extension, which of course would be great for the Schengen side, too, but I don't necessarily see the space for that ATM.

This is quite amusing and I assume it is meant that way. Most of the team I belong to have senior level jobs (executive) in a large global corporation, and fly mostly short-haul Y because of the geographic location and focus of the company office.

All plats are equally earned, rules are rules, no problem. But, if they/whoever thinks there are too many elites, easy solution is to qualify them on points only. Enough segments will bring enough points so game is equal for all.

Status is status, however the thresholds are a bit off IMHO. Especially Lumo points vs. segments is lunatic.

I can see how those crazy corporate opportunistic every week shorthaul hoppers piss off those trying to sleep in longhaul J a few times a year. Clearly, those corporate plebs shouldn't belong in the same club.

This discrepancy could be easily explained. AY wanted to have an exclusive over-the-top tier (Lumo). At the same time they wanted to keep the high-earning nature of their own J flights. Double-Plat on points would make Lumo far less exclusive, there must be relatively lot of people in the 300k-450k band. So they set the bar at triple-Plat.

At the same time, setting the segment bar at triple-Plat would mean some 220-230 segments, as good as unattainable for anyone, even on this forum. So to be able to offer something to the short-haul über-road-warriors* they set the segment requirements at double-Plat, knowing that there are few who'd qualify (they have the exact numbers) A couple of crazies** doing extra ARN/OUL runs won't rock the boat.

*road-warrior is wrong term for flying, but I couldn't come up with a new/better one.
** I say this in a loving way :D

PS - I think this discussion gets to be borderline lumotic, to paraphrase an old document "all Platskus are created equal"

Why not simply introducing a spending requirement (fare + YQ/YR) of say 15k €. That is only 100€ per segment so according to what I read here something the segment side anyway reaches (expensive last minute LHR/ARN/OUL tickets) as well as the points side (expensive LH J tickets). You can play with the number but it is likely higher to have a small enough group.

Great to see a comment about the program design ! ^

I also think they did like you say, but right there you have the contradiction, built into any such reasoning.
If the purpose is to create an exclusive club, then why even consider a segment qualification, when the first thing they need to do is to lower it as otherwise "no one can reach the target"? Isn't the whole "exclusive" thing about being almost impossible to reach?

And why segments at all? Is someone flying TKU-ARN every week really a twice as frequent flyer as someone flying HEL-ARN every week? One is Lumo, the other one is Platinum. Is that Lumo really so much more important to AY than that plat? And if Finnair opens a direct TKU-ARN, is that Lumo suddenly extremely less important and therefore must be kicked out of the exclusive club?

The problem is that Finnair confused the loyalty program with the exclusive club and, perhaps by some misdirected egalitarian ideal, decided entry to the club must also be possible by segments.


If we examine SK EB (from where AY has been know to poach both employees and ideas), they also have introduced a new tier above the previous top-tier. They now offer 2 different tiers both corresponding to Star Gold, ie highest alliance tier. Their new 'Diamond' was introduced on top, while they also pushed down requirements for other tiers.

And lo-and-behold, the new Diamond level is exactly 2x times the effort of Gold, regardless of if you qualify by miles or segments. (Segments 45->90, points 45k->90k) How on earth could they manage doing it?!?

Doesn't SK too have a gang of high-earning fliers that earns a lot of points? They do, their elites flying J earns at the same 250% level as on AY+. And aren't they commercially important? Just take a look at their pricing in J, for example CPH - NRT and you'll know they are.

The difference with EB is, they have not mixed their goals. A loyalty program has one purpose, a exclusive club for valuable customers has another.

So they designed the loyalty program with only loyalty in mind; To entice infrequent flyers, with very easy entry to first tier, and with a very large number of partners for easy award points. They made it easy-ish for any semi-frequent flyer to reach Gold (Alliance top-tier) while maintaining a differentiation between semi-frequent and frequent flyers with the new top-tier Diamond.

They didn't need to confuse the loyalty program with the exclusive club, because they already had one "secret" über-tier - Pandion. This is their exclusive club with the exclusive benefits for the top spender, without published requirements. If you are qualified you'll know it and for the rest of "elites" there is no need to worry about it.

This way, SK EB makes sure the loyalty program works as intended, promoting increased loyalty and increased business all across the board and at the same time can take special care of their top-100 customers without ever losing control of how large that group is or who is invited to that exclusive club.

In SK, the top-tier is the top-tier. Once you reach Diamond, that is pretty much end of the line for the vast majority. You will have the perks other top-tier members has and that's it.
If you are one of the infinitesimal few to be of extreme commercial value to SK, you will know it and you will be taken care of. This is not a place you can get to by doing "pandion-runs", a concept we never have and never will hear of. That is in stark contrast to the comment that a Finnair FA knew about at least 3 people competing to get to Lumo first by doing runs.
Once there, maybe they will find the club less exclusive than they thought it'd be.

Fantastic post, intuition!

Although I will never make Lumo (as I live in the US, don't fly that much), I thought this thread was about "recognition, freebies, and soft perks", which I was interested in just as a curiosity. The last 3 pages of comments have been on who should qualify, tier points vs. segments etc..

Do Lumo's actually get unannounced day-to-day benefits?

You guys really care about the program in theory? I m with a program / an airline as long as it fits to my needs, once my schedule change the program will most likely change too. Before I traveled a lot to the US and I was loyal to BA and Lufthansa, now I travel most of the time to Asia, first I was very loyal with TG - but once they risen their prices I changed to AY. And I guess I will stay with AY as long as the price performance relationship stays on the same level. If I stay Platinum or become Lumo won t make a big difference.

Great post by intuition!

Just one more OT.

Probably someone at some point laid these numbers out, however here they are again. Thresholds for points increase the higher the status.

Points/segments/1000:

Silver 1,5
Gold 1,74
Platsku 1,97
Lumo 3

Yes, at least I do. It is kind of a professional interest.


And when compensating for tier bonus (that only affects points and helps you requalify for a tier) the points/segments requirement quota becomes:

Silver 1,4
Gold 1,5
Platsku 1,6
Lumo 2,4

In A319-321:s and ATR:s You would then be suffering smaller foot space than by selecting row 2...