Maluku_Flyer

Have you ever had any success finding Z availability when you needed to re-book?

SleepOverGreenland

I had other questions, more important for me compared to those numbers.

N1003U

Yes, but only if I get something of value for it. Give me something that is more valuable to me than what the competitors are offering, and I will pay extra with a smile on my face, and I'll be impressed that you thought a little bit in advance about my needs...@:-)

NewbieRunner

But your needs may not be the same as my needs.

I thought you mentioned this in relation to your P fare vs Y fare dilemma. Didn't you suggest you preferred if they had a fare structure where you pay more and get a better seat and more miles, or you pay less and get a lesser seat (which you can upgrade with instruments) and receive fewer miles? Instead you had to spend time trying to figure out which was more advantageous for you. You'd rather spend a little more money to make life easier.

NewbieRunner

Fortunately I don't have to change my schedule often but on one occasion I had to change I could have found Z availability if I had some flexibility. As it turned out my return segment had booked into D and I ended up choosing a date when Z wasn't available (weekend).

p.s. By the time I eventually chose the date to fly the only single seat left was 12A for which the LX agent apologised. It didn't matter in the end since I was op-upped to 2A.

N1003U

Then it is a matter of 1.) meeting common needs of large groups (or profiles) of passengers, AND/OR 2.) providing a customer-unique experience.

I think both are to a degree possible, if one has some imagination...@:-)

That was just one example, where the LH fare/mileage earning structure makes my life complicated and requires an involved decision process, when the product offering could/should make the choice obvious. LH unnecessarily complicated the decision, created doubt and frustration and second guessing, and I had not even bought a ticket yet

Easy decision (what I think LH should offer me on LH.com on a walk-up @ T-3 hours:
a.) spend more money and get more on-board service, more flexibility, and more miles.
OR
b.) spend less money and get less on-board service, (maybe) less flexibility, and less miles.

The proposition is clear: spend more and get more of everything, or less and get less of everything.

More complicated decision (what LH offered me):
a.) spend more money (mobile site only offered a P fare for ~3.100€) and get more service, but less flexibility and less miles.
OR
b.) spend less money (only Y fare was offered for 1.700€) and get less service, but more flexibility and more miles.

The proposition is now not clear. Now I spend more and get more of some things and less of others, or I spend less and get less of some things and more of others. So now here it the decision process:
a.) Y-purchase: I can try to analyze if it is worth it to buy the Y fare and see if I can get a upgrade with instruments (saves money but costs miles/eVouchers), and I have to think about the return--will I be able to upgrade that? Do I want to upgrade that? will I be able to? How important are 50% more miles? am I close to a status threshold? Do I want to just suffer in a Y seat since PHL/FRA is only about 6.5 hours wheels-up time anyway?
b.) P-purchase: what are the odds I will need to change my return and pay an up charge? Should I call LH and ask for the cost options for more flexible fares (and probably get a clueless agent in God-knows-where since it is late evening in Europe who won't know how to walk me through the options? Do I want to spend that much time trying to figure out the options? Gee, those 50% extra miles on the Y fare are tempting, and I have a stack of instruments--I wonder if there is any I inventory tonight? Or should I take the guaranteed C...gosh this is a lot of work: I should be filling in the gaps in my notes from that client meeting before I forget, but I need to get this stupid ticket booked...

Hint to LH: offer a C-fare on the search result for 3.500€, and I will probably take it. Problem solved, LH has more money, I am happy, relaxed, and not still wondering if I did the right thing. Even if I choose the Y fare and upgrade, at least I am not second-guessing myself, and I haven't spent an eternity trying to analyze the situation while the whole time swearing at LH for being so stupid...

...of course after spending time sorting out the complicated mess LH presented me with, I will board in a bad mood and find everything wrong with the flight, the aircraft and the service, and I will subsequently gripe on FT about how much LH sucks and book my next fight to HKG on CX...@:-)

That is the example in detail--I would give LH 400€ more than they were willing to settle for to put me in the same seat (which should make LH happier), I make the decision in two minutes and am at peace with the decision, and as a consolation prize I get 3.939 more miles and a theoretically re-bookable ticket (which makes me happier).

Why can't LH do that?


As described above, yes, precisely.

Maluku_Flyer

I was surprised that the number of SENs appears to have jumped to 180K.

The numbers that I seem to remember from a couple of years ago were 200K FTLs, 70K SENs and 10K HONs.

SENs tripled in numbers?

fedeflyer

Hello everybody! I am a new follower, can someone please give me some informations on the following?

I bought a ticket on the lufthansa website round trip FRA-HKG and it's class L, considering that I can't get any miles from miles and more and aegean program, do you know guys if paying the difference, is possible to change class to Q, S or Y to get more miles ?
Thanks a lot..

SMK77

You paid that much money for an Economy seat? Lifemiles is your friend. Just saying...

SuperFlyBoy

+1. ^

Also, taking this out of order from your post (which I apologize for), but which must be isolated for LH lurkers to understand:

^

It is insanely obvious what their condition is in their ivory tower at FRA - but they appear to be too stubborn to accept this...



I anticipate the demise of LH within 5 years if they continue at this rate.

Competitors will soon seize this opportunity (more than they have already) once they smell the fear prevailing within LH management...

(I felt it long ago at the Swiss biz/F seat unveil event in BOM, but now it can be seen to be even worse)

N1003U

I don't know what the correct number is, but I find it hard to believe that SENs have tripled in number recently.

NewbieRunner

The last discussion on the number of status customers that I can find is from 2007:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ml#post6970250

Even then there were more than 70K SENs worldwide (c. 114K in the 6 countries mentioned if the ratio of SEN:FTL is 1:3). Since then it became easier for anyone with a German address to become SEN (130K -> 100K miles) but recent reductions in status miles on discount fares might reduce the number in the next couple of years.

LH4116

In Sweden there are said to be around 300 Senators and 9 HON Circle members. Sounds like quite a small number…

Still find it rather incredible that LH has the most number of status customers, despite Senator being perhaps the hardest *Gold status to achieve. Could it perhaps have been due to Lufthansas strong association to the alliance, that they have built up a salience towards the *A brand. E.g that people more or less autonomously have chosen M&M as their FFP without making any further research?

TRAVELSIG

Certainly the 9 HON Circle members is an incorrect number- there is one company alone in Sweden that has more than 9 HON Circle members based in the country.

All guessing aside- it would be quite normal to project that the number of Senator members went up quite a bit with the reduction in Germany (the main market) from 130K miles to 100K miles for qualification. In the next couple of years as people change/drop out of the program etc I think that number will go down.

The HON program was rumored to be around 8-9K members (just a rumor- no hard numbers)- and I suspect the goal will be to get that back to the original 2500 or so there were in the beginning (again just a guess).

gum

Thank you for your post which at both times conveys a cost estimation and a good portion of humour.

If I would be Lufthansa I would immediately use the exact number (extracted from the accounting department) in order to reshape the continental product and the number of passengers.

During an assessment period I would count all the 99ers and similar fares not delivering any contribution to the airline. They only occupy seat and boost the number of sold seats.

Then I would calculate a scenario with both numbers in mind:

• According to your calculation the self-cost for the 205 seat A321 is approx. 34,14 Euro per Y "seat-hour"
• Going back to the 186 or 180 seat scenarios this means 7,000/180 seats: 38,90 Euro

In consequence LH could offload all fares delivering less than approx. 40 Euro per hour in the then NON-NEK Y, respectively 40*3/2= 60 Euro in the NON-NEK C or the 70 Euro per seat hour with an increased pitch. (Naturally before taxes).

This rough estimation shows which fares should be off-loaded and how LH could reinstate a proper product for all s/h flights.

No need for the Germanwings product anymore. This would be nonstop sensible.

The resulting additional revenue in all types of Eco and Business fares would also enable to discontinue fare class "J".

By using this calculation even the new "P" Business class offers for the route MUC-LHR would deliver value to the airline.