FlyeBye

No system problem AFAIK. Every gift mail comes around 10-ish a month after you reached the milestone, so 40 days at least. Have asked CS about this several times as many times I already reached the next level before I got the milestone mail about the last level. There seems to be nothing that they can do to speed this up.

FlyeBye

That would be my summary so far as well. Enjoying the ride, and will most likely renew this year. Though, wouldn't go out of my way to renewing this as well.

NoWindowSeat

intuition

Very interesting to hear thoughts from Wilco and Flyebye about renewals.

It makes me think about the discussion a year ago, weather lumo should be a tier or a "secret club".
A tier, with its well-defined threshold and perks makes sense if it is something people will be reaching for. If so, it can extract new revenue and also protect current revenue.
But, it can also disturb the existing system, introducing new dynamics. It can also drive cost rapidly which eventually leads to devaluation of the perks.

A club, with its invite-only or non-published requirements, is OTOH nothing people reach for. You are either in it or you're not. As such, its main purpose is not to extract new revenue but to protect. This model works well for the absolute top customers, where the airline can pinpoint and pamper the true high yielders.

With a club, the airline has full control of costs. They have 100% control of the size of the club. The perks are rarely published either and that gives the airline some more freedom in adding/removing perks.



With the comments that Lumo has been a very nice tier but actually not worth to go out of one's way to achieve, I wonder if it shouldn't have been a club instead.

Trav1970

The requirements for getting to Lumo are somewhat high, and the requirement to earn on AY tickets is substantial compared to other tiers (=you can become platinum without ever buying an AY ticket but no chance of getting to Lumo). Thus, someone being Lumo drives revenues on AY.

Are the Lumo perks then worth it or not? BMW rides are nice if you end up getting one (my total thus far has been a 0% success rate). Free beverages and food on Y flights (short haul, as food on long haul would anyway be free) are nice -- but why are AY not upgrading Lumo passengers to J space permitting as e.g. north American airlines do as a standard practice? My friend is Global Services on UA, and he hardly ever finds himself at the back of the bus. Yes, upgrade vouchers are nice and I would expect to use those to secure upgrades on special occasions (holiday travels, for example), but complimentary upgrades would be appreciated. And so on.

For me, the decision is to either consolidate enough travel on AY to earn Lumo, or to fly enough to earn Platinum and earn corresponding statuses with *A and Skyteam also. I ended up renewing Lumo last year, and this year I am already at 60k points after one month. However, I am tempted to dip a bit more into the other alliances as my travel patterns take me to some destinations which are not well connected by OneWorld, and flying short hops with the competing alliances is a pain due to lack of status.

WilcoRoger

This is the reason I value and renew my TK *G status, even if it eats into my AY earnings. Not too difficult to reach and easy to renew (25k miles in the first year or 37,5k miles during the 2 years of status validity). With the loss of Diners and its free lounge access, life will get more difficult outside the alliance(s) of choice.

aama

It just crossed my mind that I think AY had (at least before Lumo) a Platinum VIP card. Do they have the same now for Lumo?

mhle

I belong to the group of people who is clearly influenced by the introduction of Lumo. I have already for a long time maintained three statuses (currently Finnair Plus Platinum, SAS Eurobonus Diamond, Swiss M&M Senator). This year I have made a change to my travel pattern and started to prioritize Finnair on long-haul. Out of my 7 long-hauls booked for the first half of the tracking period, 5 are with Finnair, one is with BA and one with ANA. Usually it has been a little more Star Alliance than OneWorld. Why am I doing this? First, there is not a lot of motivation on collecting status at Star Alliance (reached Eurobonus Lifetime Gold and Diamond gives no addiional value; do not need to renew Senator this year). Second, I like the improvements that Finnair has made recently and actually enjoy flying with them. Third, by focusing on Finnair makes reaching OneWorld lifetime status possible. But more than anything else, it is the weird attraction of trying to reach something new. I already know that Lumo will probably not be anything that special or different from standard Platinum, similarly as Eurobonus Diamond was never anything special compared to Gold. Still I am ready for the challenge of reaching something new, hoping to experience something new in the middle of the ongoing travelling routine. If Finnair was counting on generating any additional income with their new level, I admit - I am a victim of that plan.

ffay005

I think Mhle has good points here. I'll add another – AY is a small airline and they only have approx. 100 Lumos. This means that AY's super-duper status is far more exclusive than AA Concierge Key, BA Premier or the equivalent of any large airline. I'd say that if you are one of the 100, and you need a small favour, you're probably a lot more likely to get it with AY than if you were the customer of one of the largest players.

intuition

Thanks for reporting, and it is interesting to hear about this case. We had some discussion if this wasn't exactly what a new top-tier on AY would do - drive revenue, not by making top flyers fly more, but to make them prioritise AY for more and more flights.


Now, that makes you rather special (hehe, didn't mean it that way!) But a LT platinum would probably say the opposite: Lumo is not special enough to drive extra AY flights.
So the question is: If your status in Star Alliance wasn't secured - would you still prioritise AY for Lumo, even if it meant you lost *G?

intuition

OTOH, none of those other super-tiers are reachable via segments. You'll never meet a Concierge key holder from flying eg Hartford-Philadelphia-Norfolk on cheapest econ ticket 3 times a month.
And there is likely no route on AA network where there are 15-20 CK holders in the cabin.

mhle

At least for me the pragmatic approach would win over the exciting approach here. I want to have Star Gold for short-haul economy flights. I would not go for Lumo if it would mean losing Star Gold. But Star Gold is quite easy to get, if one goes for something easier than e.g. Senator. Two long-haul round-trips in business are typically sufficient complemented by short-haul travels. I could think of the option of leaving Senator, only qualifying for Eurobonus Gold and going for Lumo, all doable if one travels one long-haul roundtrip per month in business.

But most of all, I would not go all-in for this kind of option if I would have a clear preference of flying another airline. My travel pattern is largely transatlantic (Europe - USA) and most of the OneWorld and Star Alliance options are fairly equal to my liking (with some options that I avoid because I don't like the product or connection). In that kind of situation, an option like Lumo can be the thing that makes a difference.

Post Scriptum

Given intuition is bit biased by his obsession on cheap-Lumo running, I need to remind that anyone travelling such a schedule (i.e. OUL-HEL-ARN/BMA and back) for work does not fly on the cheapest tickets but often need to book value for changeability etc. such a day trip costs easily 300e, so someone churning such pattern easily yields AY a revenue in the order of 10kE/annum. Yes, this would yield easily EXP on AA, not CK, but still its all about loyalty. Not rewarding loyalty sufficiently, leading to the person switching to EB, AY might lose a passenger for all of those ~150 seats the person occupies whilst flying with AY. When AY piss off a businetic longhauler, although AY looses same amount of revenue, AY still need to find far less pax to compensate the loss rather than when one looses a highly frequent flier.

FFlash

mhle

I live in Switzerland. But due to both work and personal reasons, I travel quite much to Finland and Sweden. I am not sure if combination of M&M Senator and AY Lumo is doable for me. I typically travel about 12-15 long-hauls per year. But that calculation will be done for next year, this year I am going all in for Lumo, as my Senator status is already secured until the end of 2020. The first half of the year will result in about 300.000 Finnair Plus points, out of which about 250.000 with Finnair, so I am well in pace. Living in Central Europe, qualification by segment is not on the agenda for me.