TRAVELSIG

Indeed!

It is not a good sign when the most frequent customers are litigating against the company.

For all of us on Flyertalk- ask- "how many of my largest customers have started litigation against me"- and even further- "how many have won?".

CalFlyer

This is exactly what I suggested that LH should do in my previous posts. Delta Airlines had "old" and "new" miles in parallel for many years. I will now request the same from LH.

Rambuster

This is the lawyer that represented the plaintiff:

http://www.stratmannkollegen.de/

I guess they are willing to take on new clients !

More details here:
http://meilenschwund.wordpress.com/

rotanes

If I would be LH, I would be very happy about this result.

They can now legally change the rules with 4 month notice instead of 1 month. So what, this is peanuts.

And if really within these additional three month there will be a run on bookings with old conditions, they will be initially happy about so many bookings and then start managing it via the availability.

And Calflyer and others: If you ask them, they will give you 4 month to spend all your miles

TRAVELSIG

Interesting take on this judgement.

The four month period sounds fair- one month was not- perhaps this whole scenario could have been avoided with a fair policy to start with?

check balance

the way I see it as a non-lawyer, LH would only need to pay for the difference of what they have charged in terms of miles between the second month untill the fourth month of the changed t&c announcement. I agree: peanuts to them.

CalFlyer

I disagree. For me, the most important statement is what the Gerichtssprecher said, i.e. that the individual case needs to be considered so that there are no general implications from the plaintiff's case.

The plaintiff had a "measerly" 800K miles in his account, I had 3.6M. For me, 4 months would be far too short to use up all my miles. I am sure I would get a judgement that LH needs to honor the old redemption chart for a very very long time.

Also, I would add to my lawsuit a suit against the so-called fuel surcharges on award flights which I am sure are completely illegal.

whiskey_sk

Well, they might instead be ordered to refund fuel surcharges on cancellation of cheapo non-flexible tickets. That would make the surcharge legal enough to survive I'm afraid.

RTW1

I wouldn't be so sure.... they didn't state that the grace period, in this case 4 months, would have to be sufficient to use up all 800k miles. I'm quite sure that there would also be an argument that having 3.6M miles in an account would in effect prevent LH from making changes within a reasonable amount of time if you were to be allowed to use the old redemption charts almost indefinitely.... and therefore a maximum grace period of something like 6-12 months would be sufficient.

The M&M conditions clearly state that changes can be made, and that has been upheld. We just have a ruling that they need to communicate these changes well before implementing them. Not that you are entitled to use (all) your miles under the conditions you earned them.

And another big part is the perception that changes can/will be applied. By not changing the redemption tables for such a long time they hindered their ability to make changes. I guess that won't happen again....

somethinpositiv

I'm glad these individuals are taking a stand against the airlines for them f*ing over their frequent flyers.

CalFlyer

I wrote an email to the Lufthansa HON Circle team yesterday, asking them to create a separate account for my "old miles" for which the old award charts will be valid.

I also expressed my anger about the fact that I had asked for bonus miles as compensation in my original request one year ago, which was outright refused, while the plaintiff in this case was immediately offered bonus miles as compensation after going to court (luckily he did not accept). Not a way to treat your best customers.

bertheike

This is something totally different !
If your tank is empty you decide if you buy gasoline for the actually given rate or not, and you get what you paid for on the point.
The miles are an curency which you accumulate in an account under some conditions the FFP gives you at the time of you earn them. And after you have saved them, you not have the choice to spend / transfer them to another FFP. So if your FFP rises the prices for redemptions, you not have any choice !

CalFlyer

None of us have read the original court judgment yet, so it is difficult to understand the key arguments behind this judgment (as always, journalist reports leave lots of room for interpretation and are sometimes even misleading).

But from the few facts provided in the Spiegel article I conclude that the court - while upholding LH's right to change the T&C of their program - puts clear limitations towards how this right can be executed. I do not know how the court arrived at a 4 months period, but it looks like it is tailored towards the plaintiff's award usage pattern. If this is what the court did, they would need to provide me with a 5 year transition window. Pure speculation, though, since facts are missing.

More importantly, it looks like the court did not order Lufthansa to now provide a 4 months window to the plaintiff, but the court ruled that the redemption changes "are invalid regarding the miles that the plaintiff had accumulated before Jan 2011". Curious to see what this implies for LH's options regarding the plaintiff's account.

Generally, I do not believe that the airlines' T&Cs with respect to their FF programs are worth the paper they are written on. After commercializing their programs to the extent they have done it (e.g. selling miles to customers and vendors) airlines have effectivley created a currency. The U.S. courts had recognized that as early as in the mid 1990s when Delta Airlines was forced by court order to honor the value of miles accumulated before a revamp of the redemption structure. Despite Delta's T&Cs which seemed to allow Delta to do anything Delta wanted.

CalFlyer

Fully agree, Bert.

The situation is more like: The gas station raises its prices not only for the new fuel you buy, but retroactively also for the fuel that was still left in your tank. And on top of that, a new service fee is levied for all fuel (old and new).

TRAVELSIG

Another HON circle customer upset.

Strangely, the usual PR team and LH apologists are unusually silent in this thread.

One piece of free advice for Lufthansa- change your customer orientation right now or become like the pre-bankruptcy GM- complaining about the unfair competition of their Japanese competitors, laughing and ridiculing their product, saying they were selling below cost- oh, and then going bankrupt.

German customers are not stupid- nor are Europeans- it is time right now to fix customer relations, restore a sense of trust, and deliver a product with good value.