oliver2002

Not really, somebody has to accrue for it...


As far as Payback is concerned, I generate about 20000 °P each year, usually via monthly shopping with all coupons etc at dm and Real where I get 1300-1500°P via 10x coupons or bonus for buying some cleaner (all which I need). The rest comes via the Leserservice magazine subscriptions at 7-8€/1000°P for stuff I want to read.

Another issue LH wants to address with this move is to provide a way for Otto N. to earn points on his/her daily spend. When most flights only earn 125 miles (for various reasns) its very difficult to convince them to keep collecting for that aspirational award

Bernie2012

Do you remember the picture of the one eyed guy with the whip you posted here somewhere? Maybe its just an algorithm gone wild that they are sending you this stuff @:-) ()

moeve

Selling even more does not reduce the liabilty quite the opposite is true. It just makes them worth even less. Mark my words we will see them being devalued even more.

Bernie2012

And what do these 20.000 p give you? An annual renewal of your toaster which you order every year from PayPal and its so inferior that you need every year a new one? They must have some$ left to spend on the rapidly growing hard disk space where they store how many apples and egs you have bought last year, but look on Weero and you see what happens if things go wrong

Let me guess, If Otto N. does not fly frequently enough to be relevant for any airline, then you maybe send him straight away a PayPal Card where you print somewhere a nice Dreamliner on or so and state that you can collect also air miles...

I have seen in my live at least 3 or 4 times folks having the blue card visible in their wallet [sic!] So there may be other reasons why people have those...

I have my doubts that the 25m MM crowd is fully compatible with the typical PayBack crowd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyIFaAkxd1Y
(Needless to say that Mrs. Bernie2012 is the one with the wallet twice as big as mine is and she does not have a MM card as a filler).

So perhaps the way out is rather to elevate the game in terms of what this blue card actually gives you with LH? Service? Playing to their ego of being someone? Create a blue card with a hologram if you fly twice a year with them? Find some perks for those which costs nothing but serve the purpose of getting them to book more flights with you? I mean, its still a frequent flyer program..

N1120A

Customer loyalty programs are among the most profitable parts of an airline. LH would be stupid to spin M&M off. The AC example is a good one, where the quasi-criminal stripping of profitable assets was led by the spin off of Aeroplan.

oliver2002

20000°P = 20000 M&M miles in my SEN account....@:-) I say SEN because I use the SEN WL to get any C award I like to have to transport my family on vacation on a direct longhaul flight ex MUC. Payback can be a very nice lever to use... ^

oliver2002

This is a myth because N. American programs managed to get a lot of cash from Chase and Amex which delayed/prolonged/avoided ch 11 situations. In Europe there is not much to be made... look at the recent due diligence info from AB topbonus.

GBM.flights

Rösti Otto is unfortunately SOL for that aspirational LX F award. As am I as of 1MAR14.

Overall I think this move to further monetize M&M is not necessarily bad, as it's already corrupted by 50k sign-up bonuses for those who can get a US card (And using it with no YQ on domestic/Hawaii), so at least make it an even playing field for those on this side of the Atlantic.

Bernie2012

Yes, but you are Oliver2002 and not OttoN2013 And since I am too ashamed to get Viagra from my doc, I will be likely satisfied with the LH SEN Companion award for another couple of years to end the year with the same mileage levels and not to have to perform a total striptease for the PayPal/Amex archives (Did you know that the Bahn card is run by AMEX too?).

OttoN2013 in all likelihood does not know that a C award exists and I doubt that OttoN2013 will not be terribly amazed when he finds out that after he pulled for two or three years his Payback card in every grocery store, gas station or porn shop, that he gets an award ticket which then has still very high service charges to be paid in real cash.

I for my part am not interested to sell off my privacy for some lousy PayBack points...

TRAVELSIG

Further signal of a confused organization.

gum

Thanks for the great contribution especially the example with the shoe shop and the discussion for a rebate.

Concerning the (quarterly) Coupon mailings I agree that the best place for the "shop invitations" is the "Ablage P". ^

I only read them for something like a "half scientific" approach to marketing and customer recovery:

If I change my buying behaviour I just look at the next quarterly coupons and how they can be modified by shopping. Although the size of this sample is 1 (so not statistically valid) there are some interesting insights into the different strategies of the companies:

+ The Galeria Kaufhof Coupons don't seem to change their value/rebate percentage. It seems that due to cost and paper saving you get different numbers of coupons.
+ One drugstore even stores the location of the shop where you have bought. So one coupon stated: Your team at the drugstore.... Hofstatt, Munich (or something like that), one other coupon stated: Your team at.... ZOB.
Very interesting that they even have the ability (and cheapness of memory space) to track the location where you shop.
+ The ARAL coupons vary between 3 fold, 5-fold and seven fold point per liter. But they are so far away from my normal routes (and more pricey than otherts) that I would pay more money in to get incremental amounts of points out.
+ various more or less senseless offers of new partners attached. Whoever chooses his mobile phone due to Payback points?

To summarize it: Payback is a nice gadget but the usual customer/shopper doesn't get out much of it.

Therefore I stick to my Amex MR and even collect them for a coffee/croissant on my way to work:
http://www.mcdonalds.de/produkte/pro...me=mccroissant

Couldn't even imagine to collect Payback points for it if McD would be a partner.

moeve

Actually not so bad for those of us who have a M&M credit card as well.

Bernie2012

Same as Miles and More, you don't get much out of it too if you are the "usual customer".

You get amex points for a McCroissant? Ok, Oliver2002 explained the application of his payback card with his family in need [to fly] but pulling a McCroissant in a discussion is nasty

McD hands out occasionally coupons all by themselves and doesn't ask you for your address, phone number, e-mail and with whom you have cheated on your wife last time. [that is just a hypothetical statement to make the sentence more crisp]

If one just shops around instead of doing a striptease for our new corporate overlords and to be by them as a pay just satisfied by the occasional coupon and PayBack point being stuffed in one's string tanga,

But instead sets once in a while a few Euro's aside, I think that buys a nice holiday without being pants down and voluntarily exploited 24/365 for Corporate Europe, which is a whole different game... That's why I don't like Idea of MM getting out of the current setting and strict rules, which is an unconfirmed guess/fear anyway...

oliver2002

You can't even imagine what length people go thru to get extra °P on a weekly basis. Just read a bit here: http://www.vielfliegertreff.de/payback-webmiles-co/

The fabled datamining that you seem to be so scared off doesn't exist. Even though Paybacks great backend was also applied to M&M by LPS last year all it has done is stop the promos being offered to all and sundry. Paybacks own datamining basically ends up offering me coupons on the partners I usually use, but then tries me to use partners that don't even have outlets in my part of town.

The hillarious thing is that if you photoshop your account info into scanned coupons (see VFT threads above) you can merrily accrue 5-10x points on a regular basis. Haven't stooped that low though.

gum

Great sense of humour, Bernie2012!

Makes my day!