warakorn

There are many more cases, which are more compelling:
e.g. airline cancels a flight shortly before the end of the year and because of that the passenger does not hit the qualification threshold.

I do not want to compile a large list. But passengers might not be able to hit the threshold, because one airline has screwed up something.

Original Routing Credit is not always given out.

A less extreme example:
Passenger books a flight in mileage-earning fare class. Between the booking and the flight, the airline changes the mileage award charts and eliminates mileage accrual from that fare class.

In this posting, I see that the passenger got a cold. That is certainly not the fault of the airline. Moreover, that flight to South Africa was most likely a mileage run. LH MM is not so keen to keep Mileage Runners happy.

warakorn

Moreover, the OP does seem to have this Senator requalification issue quite often (today and back in 2009):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...500-miles.html

Often1

1. Lost job .
2. Dying relative to care for.

And then there are the issues where the underlying reason is created by a carrier which do not tug at the heartstrings, but also evidence someone who did not wait until the last second to deal with an issue which could have been forseen months in advance:

1. Delays over new year's.
2. Reroute OA in IRROPS and no ORC.

This also isn't about making moral judgments, e.g., "my excuse is better than yours....", it is about the simple fact that few if any programs/carriers publicly grant exceptions to program requirements at a time when they are engaged in the process of thinning the herd rather than trying to find ways to expand it.

This is also about the fact that while people routinely bash FFP's as "lousy" (as this OP did), the marketing effort is effective. No matter how poorly treated, people seem to be willing to do a lot to maintain participation at given levels.

weero

&
I don't doubt that there are other cases, maybe even more dramatic ones. But I cannot see the plethora of of threads Often1 claimed spring up at this season. Compared to the "can I get access to the LH FCT with a TG Y ticket - I am Silver-something" threads, these last day MRs are usually quite confined.
But that was half your argument.
I agree, there is no safe way this can be standardised without being badly exploited.
Yes, some people do so. But many, many have moved on.

Taking FFPs serious these days is just unwise to put it mildly. Sure if you find a way to trick and pump goodies out of an airline, then by all means enjoy it. But I'd not even waste my employer's money on medium or high airfares anymore.

Since I systematically put FFPs last, I travel with a lot less hassle, and save a chunk of money. The last two years, I cut spending by 60% and 40% respectively.

warakorn

:Can I really get into the LH FCT, when departing on a A3 flight and having a silver card?

RTW1

Exactly.... Plenty of options.

Beg :-), or use those award miles for a status miles exchange, book AirTrain, pay €2000 for an extra year....Or better yet, plan your requalification that a change for a few days doesn't impact your earnings so much.

But with that extra 10k requalifying should either already be done or you were way short. Just like a lot of us with the lousy earnings these days.

FD1971

Unfortunately, you are wrong here. Some people have moved on, but many many remained loyal resulting in the simple fact that M&M has more total members and elite members than ever before. It is correct that a small minority of people moved on, but that was the case even before 2004.

Several airlines took a closer look at them (I was involved in several of those surveys) and figured that it is often not worthwhile keeping them. In cases where it was worthwhile, several airlines undertook quite some measures to get them back (comping status, comping a certain amount of status miles etc.)

We have people in Germany who will try to get comped at another airline every year like they switch their energy providers every year in order to take advantage of the sign up bonus, 99.99% of mankind would define loyalty a bit different.

You might be right here, but generalizing your personal approach and believing that this will be copied by the majority is wrong. We have seen people losing SEN status...without moving on. In fact, they are probably more loyal than ever before (holding FTL...)

Under the bottom line, therefore also the main reason why all airlines do it, changing the X&O's of a FFP does not really change the passenger streams as expected by certain people (including myself about ten years ago)

This is certainly also due to the fact that the competition is not seperating itself from the bunch 'rightsizing' their schemes by offering something really unique in terms of ROI.

Even airlines who could afford to do so and maybe even have to do so to get a chunk of the market are following the true (reverse) innovators like LH or DL...the last example is EK also cutting bennies and demanding more miles or $$$ to reach status levels...

So as long as status offers anything better than nada/zippo/zilch, people will use the schemes. And I fear it is a bit overbearing telling people whether or not it makes sense for them to remain loyal to one or more FFP like you did in your post.

I understand your frustration, I understand your approach hoping that more and more people will jump ship to get the airlines to change their pattern, especially as a traveler flying in Economy most of the time, but I fear your interest group does not really include a lot of people.

You voiced your support of Socialism a couple of times, so may I recommend to meet on May, 01 to start a walk from the ETH grounds up to Swissairstr. to protest the recent changes. I really think that 'die Internationale' should indeed fight for basic frequent flyer rights like 100% on el cheapo fare classes, lounge access regardless of the fare class booked and SEN status after flying (maybe even riding a train) for just one segment per year. ^

seat 1a

My experience is that there is plenty of space available in HON lounges and FCT these days.

If I for some reason was to be de-HONed my loyalty is out the window.

weero

That is a non sequitur - M&M status is hard to loose. Heck, I didn't spend any real cash on M&M since 2011 and I will still be "an elite" for two more years.
I know no former LH frequent flyers who have not drastically reduced their spending on LH, we are not talking about the normal circulation of the flying public.
Yes I agree. Many *A carriers de facto abandoned their FFP and the alliance for that matter. But I am not getting your "holding back customers" in this context - once someone decided to leave, the effort to hold them back would be disproportional. That might be a topic for another thread.
Absolutely true. Customers are nearly as unscrupulous as the airlines these days. To make things worse, they do actually consider themselves valuable.
And yet another term has been raped into oblivion.
Of course a personal flying pattern cannot be copied. But people do react. At least those I know. I give this higher credence than the word of a LH spoke person at an event. And then you again value different information channels which explains the difference in observation.
You know such a person ? So the literal idiot-customer the airlines dream and drool about is occasional reality?
From wrong axioms you can get a great many interesting conclusions. But yes, many airlines walk a similar path. And jumping to the pommies is not an option I contemplate anytime soon.
Absolutely not - the naive correct threshold is the effort invested vs the bennies of the status not "any bennies".
Forgive me but that is your sermon, not mine. You preach that this path is the way of the airlines.
Using modern day FFPs - and be it even M&M if you have to - is fine. But staying loyal is absolutely a thing of the past, getting out of the enormous inertia of FFPs is hard however and this is what I am struggling with.
What on Earth are you referring to? You are either projecting or responding to another poster.

Neither will the old world come back, nor do I want to be a part of it again. It is actually better now than it was before.
I don't understand you at all. Are you saying that there are more Biz travellers or are you referring to the majority who doesn't travel at all ?
Are you sure you do not talk to another poster here? Or do you mean that I must have appreciation for socialism because I am an admirer of Stalin and his feat?
Modern day socialism is the last thing on Earth I have any respect for, even less than for airlines.

gum

A cordially welcome back to FT, FD1971! I am happy to read your posts.

Let me add some tiny amendments to the change of the market for business and leisure travel in the last years. It seems that the whole industry and not only Miles&More sees a dramatic change in how the market is seen and shaped.

The decline in average fares and especially the percentage of "full fare" customers continues and therefore the airlines had to review their business model as well as the loyalty schemes.

You could call these loyalty schemes also sales discount programmes due to the fact that some customers get additional, costly benefits without paying a surcharge on the actual transaction. @:-)

These benefits are limited to one or two "status" years and within these times both parties are able to recalculate their business decisions for the future. Lufty's problem is on the one hand a cost base inherited from the golden age of the monopolies and flag carriers. Therefore the opportunity to save on outrageous pension benefits as well as employee costs is limited.

Therefore the management has to seek and find other set screws. Given the fact that the revenue decline per seat mile continues they could change their business model to a transaction based reward.

So people are awarded a bit less for the loyalty in the past and a bit more for the loyalty/payment of the actual transaction.

This decision/viewpoint involves several decisions:

1.) Splitting up the earning rules for rewards points (Miles & More award miles) and colour points (Miles & More status points)

2.) Refining of the yield management (where Lufthansa is great)

3.) Offload some fares where passengers don't deliver any value to the company (e.g. the 99 Euro all in return fares).

4.) A new approach to comfortable and luxury travel. These classes are no longer the "privilege" of people/fares paid by their employer but in an increasing way opened up to passengers who would like to travel comfortably.

The 2,000 Euro r/t in C fares to Asia with a pre-booking requirement for the booking class D is an obvious sign that Lufty wants to attract the discerning leisure travellers.

That said nearly every household in the middle income groups now is able to buy those comfortable products. And they enjoy nearly the full range of services like seat reservation, lounges only except some forward rows especially on short-haul travel.

The wide availability of A class fares for First Class travel (including seat reservation of the highly sought after solo window seats A and K) is another sign of rewarding the loyalty of the actual transaction.

That said the thread opener could that find great or not so great but that is the airline business at the moment.

To summarize it: These coloured cards from blue to black have lost some of its significance. But people love rankings and to proceed within the picking order.

Therefore it is a good move to continue to give out coloured plastic cards.

The way Lufthansa operates in terms of stabilizing the Return on Investment is fine. If I would have to criticize Lufthansa I wouldn't start with the loyalty scheme but with the problem if overcapacity in the market (e.g. the new low-cost long-haul subsidiary).

That said it's completely ok to have some qualification levels and to stick to that rules. The airline couldn't make many exceptions.

The first one wants to have the level of 100,000 waived and wants to get it after 97,000 miles.

The next one says: "Oh I am only 3,000 short of 97,000 miles and Eurowanderer got it renewed. Please renew it for 94,000 miles."

If you continue these way down of the threshold levels the next one says: One colleague has got ill and I wasn't able to requalify because my flight to Tokyo is postponed to the next year. Eurowanderer successor got it for 94,000 miles so couldn't you make an exception with my 87,000 miles.....

So Miles & More is simply not lousy.

htb

Thank you, gum, for your post with many interesting insights. I'd just like to comment one a small aspect:

I don't think "loyalty of the actual transaction" is something that actually exists outside the world of airline consultants. "Loyalty" is entirely the wrong term for a transactual approach and the term here is obviously designed to blurry the perception of both airline management (that they are not really changing something big, "loyalty still counts" (like status for op-ups...), as well as customers, who are supposed to be brainwashed into believing that loyalty means paying the highest available fare.

Loyalty programs were designed to attract repeat customers. With the current setup first-time customers will look at their mileage posting of 3000 miles for a round trip to Tokyo and realize that they would have to fly regularly for the next 10 years to get close to an intra-European award in Economy. If that doesn't discourage them, losing miles after 36 months certainly will. And if not, once they have paid more in "airport fees" for their award than a paid flight would have cost outright, they will certainly turn away.

The current course may look great on paper in the short run, but I'm sure it will cause the loss of many repeat customers in the long run.

Well, it's lousy enough so that I have abandoned it and credited all my miles to UA's Mileage Plus program instead. I still flew mostly LH, though.

HTB.

Lack

Which benefits are so costly? ASR? Being checked in by a human being (like 2 years was the norm)? Being able to reach a phone agent in case or IRROPS? Being able to check in two bags in Y? Trying to find an empty seat in the lounge (which LH bills at single digit USD number)?

Except, when one of the parties recalculates their business decisions on quarterly basis, which was pretty much the case for LH recently.

Which is a funny way of doing business. Charging more (in the end, consumer has to pay for the reward) to deliver something the consumer might not even care about.

There were a lot of sub 2k EUR fares in the past too. They just weren't considered Promotional, and got 200% miles.

Highly sought after? They make over 50% of the pool.

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. But we do not live in a the land of the blind yet.

gum

There are many costly benefits involved in the higher levels of a FFP program.
Just think about:

+ Systemwide lounge access. Have a look on the price tag of the lounge access for the Business Class lounge which Lufty charges for Premium Economy passengers. It is 25 Euro per visit.

+ Advanced seat reservation costs money if you could otherwise sell it for 10-30 Euro or even 48 Euro (like BA does on some long-haul routes). Therefore limiting the silver benefits to the real important customers will heighten the chance for cashing-in for the ASR.

+ The wide availability of reduced fares. The first time I realized the sub-2000 Euro r/t in intercontinental Business Class was directly after the devastating, inhuman attacks on the twin tower. Then MUC->EWR/JFK in holiday periods was charged lower than 2,000 Euros.

But since then many years of inflation have passed and sub-2000 is not what it was before. Also Lufty has a new Business product which costed e.g. 6/98 in productivity on the A 380.

Furthermore as any other European airline Lufthansa had to survive the European Finance crisis and has to build up a capital surplus again.

That said it is fully understandable that the management does what it is paid for: To think about the business model and try different approaches of value-generating.

So they try the approach to start an upselling within the travel classes in order to give the passengers an incentive not to buy the cheapest available fare. So it would be not understandable if the cheap 99/109 Euro return would deliver 1,000 award miles per sector.

Lack

Would you pay 25 EUR per visit, for example to a United Club? I think it was established a while ago that for billing purposes, the cost is in low, single digits.

Again, this was part of the fare not long ago. And the fares were cheaper to boot too.

But those fare aren't exclusive to limited mileage earning enviroment.

Also, those planes supposedly have a significant operating cost advantage vs the old fleet.

Upselling how? I could have seen myself paying more for an S class fare over K and getting 100% miles just a year ago. Now why would I bother? The only incentive here is for non-captive customers to explore other carriers offers.

FD1971

gum, Thanks for the kind words, unfortunately, I am only around for a few weeks, before the new projects start...

Let me tell you a short story of a recent Q&A session at a conference.

A very senior airline manager was asked by a journalist (I suppose, didn't really understand him, when he introduced himself) whether the current developments of FFP will continue for the time being, less miles, less bennies etc.

He answered with a nice metaphor; pointing out that more and more companies spent less on TV advertising while increasing spending for other channels.

Personally, I do not agree 100%, I do not think that TV advertising is dead and I also do not think that FFP are dead, but both advertisers and airlines have simply more diverse options to reach the customer these days and they are making make use of it....with more to come soon.

To give you another example, I was working on a project where a major major European airlines was thinking about how to improve their lounges, mid-project they received some data that the importance of lounges decreased in the view of passengers and that the average attendance per pax and/or ticket decreased significantly...

What would you do now?

Invest into making the lounges better or invest into technology or people to speed up the process between arriving at the airport and being on the plane, the most important factor these days...

Of course, you could always argue that people do not use the lounges anymore, because it is not worth it, but you could also argue that the lounges are a thing of the past...for the high yield business pax on 95 out of 100 flights.

I think it is easy to agree that M&M is not what it used to be (like advertising income for TV stations for most of their programm) but that it can still create value for both sides and this is the main thing people have to figure out.

It became obvious that the OP cared about retaining his Sen status and his statement about M&M was more characterized by disappointment rather than real bad feelings about LH, but maybe people like weero are really serious about M&M (even aside from their obvious desire to come up with counter- arguments for anything from free market capitalism to UA or CO Y seats)