oliver2002

It seems about 60% of their status customers would have lost their status if they didn't extend the status this way. Demand for travel was strong in summer and the first two quarters, but looks like it will weaken in Q4. Business travel is not showing any significant recovery. More 'goodies' will be communicated in the course of the next days.

FlyerLX

No, I wasn't talking about others' reasons for travelling. I just meant that I find it hard to have just one view on this... On the one hand, it's easy to understand the rationale for their decision... On the other, I can also understand a certain disquiet on the part of those who -under whatever circumstances and whatever their flight pattern- have flown their status despite all the hurdles of the past 18 months.

As always, happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: someone who flew 35k or 100k in 2018 achieved status. That status would have expired on the last day of Feb 21. Even if they didn't fly 1km in 2019 or 2020, they were extended to Feb 22. Now, even if they haven't flown 1km in 2021, they are extended to Feb 23. Of course, a status card isn't much use if you never fly (except among those who value it on its own terms for one-upmanship or whatever), and if my example wants to keep it beyond Feb 23, they'll have to do some flying between now and then (unless there is another extension which isn't impossible). But LH surely needs to ask itself: with lounges this past weekend in FRA and MUC once again packed to bursting point, with (especially in FRA) absolutely no exclusivity or respite from the hassle of a busy terminal, is it really a good idea to keep extending non-flyers so that when they do finally hop on a mileage flight to PMI next year- 2022 ! - they can come crowding in based on their flights in 2018?...

LondonElite

Yes, fair enough, I can see the dilemma here. I gave up on M&M some years ago, but UA essentially did the same thing. Everyone was rolled over into another year, so you had at least as many status flyers as you did before, perhaps even some more. I think that the number of people who go out of their way to achieve status for its own purpose is probably small, unless you are close to achieving it anyway. Now with aircraft and lounge capacity reduced, and lots of status flyers, it's not much fun. There is probably an algorithm that airlines could have employed to give a little grace, and then accelerate status achievement with subsequent flying, but implementing and communicating that to the membership would have been difficult or impossible.

Fabo.sk

According to numbers quoted by oliver, 60% of M&M status pax would lose status without extension. Logically speaking, status passengers would be some of the most valuable passengers an airline has - and do you want to lose the lock-in of 60% of the most valuable passengers you have?
In particular coupled with the fact that it's the better paying business travel segment that is slower to pick up. If I have flown enough to maintain ST E+ with a competitor, and FTL with LH in 2018, 2019, what incentive does LH have to treat me differently in 2022 once my employer lifts the business travel restrictions, than it would in 2020 had the travel restrictions not been put in in the first place? As it is, LH can count with me to push some business towards them again next year, unless the developments during the winter are so dire that I will not be travelling again despite being fully vaccinated now.

That said, I agree that they should throw some bone to the people who did actually fly during this time - they are the ones that poured money in to allow the airlines to survive. Perhaps allowing for mileage rollover or conversion of status miles into award miles would be a good start.

FlyerLX

Yes. I don't see what the problem would be in giving everyone one extra status year on top of what they have earned. If you didn't requalify, you get a one year extension. If you requalify, you get three years. I know that means extending some people almost into the next decade, but it would be a reward to those who have actually flown. I know some have been simply unable to fly, but cash is cash...

sophialite

Well that’s just great I requalified for HON yesterday…

oliver2002

Something has been worked out, but the announcement will come later this week. Why they didn't announce the entire package in one go is weird. They have two groups of confused and angered elites:

- elites outside of D/A/CH who were not able to travel due to the pandemic: these will be happy with the extension
- elites in the their core D/A/CH market who perhaps travelled this year under difficult conditions (perhaps enticed by the 2x SM and other promos) who now feel shorted

Lets see what they come up with. My money is on extra select benefits or some evoucher(s). Sadly that won't make anyone really happy. A mileage rollover would have been nice...

FlyerLX

I would like to know about that too. I know speculation can be unpopular here, but I'm guessing that if they are planning to change the status structure from 2023 after all, they will want to announce it before next year when tickets for 2023 go on sale. What are the chances that any announcement will come sooner than about 2300 on 31/12/21...? And is it likely to be the same as the new system announced twice, then postponed twice? Or similar? Or completely different?

BristolTraveller

As some who got 76k status miles in 3 months before travel bans slammed in, that would have been ideal, and also seems quite logical. If travel has been (more or less) on pause for 18-24 months, why not just pause status/award miles *resets* for that long? There's already bonuses in the programme for people who exceed the minimum miles necessary for qualification.

Sometimes I think they just try to be too clever.

chris63

You managed that on P tickets & Evouchers, exactly as you should have done & it’s for 2 Years from Feb 22, so isn’t that better for you ?

sophialite

Yeah I think I managed the renewal well. And I still have 6 evouchers, so, with the renewal, I could get by with P/Z tickets for the next year or so. The vouchers have been relatively easy to burn during the pandemic, although early signs seems like things are tightening up significantly at least on the LX side.

chris63

Wow, still 6 EVouchers after you requalified using vouchers, your first requalification isn’t it ? You earned 6 EVouchers for your original qualification & a partner account would garner another 2, what’s your tip for still ending up with 6 EVouchers ? Obvious you will receive another 6 + 2 come November

oliver2002

You also gather evouchers via the select miles scheme. It's not uncommon for HONs to sit on 8+ vouchers.

FlyerTalker324193

Fully agree with your post.

The situation is tough on LH group. For some carriers from Asia and Oceania, travel is down so much that extensions are a no-brainer. If you core customer cannot fly anyway (or does not fly anyway as it is impractical to do so due to mandatory quarantines and such), you don't twist his current incentives by extending. But you keep your core customer happy for the future. And the extension does not cost you anything until the customer flies again and uses his extended benefits.

Even for a few European carriers, it's a similar story. In the UK, for example, travel was restricted so heavily until very recently that people just couldn't fly much even if they wanted to. So granting status extensions was the straightforward response.

I think for the US carriers, finding the right balance is most difficult. Business travel is still depressed which speaks for extensions. OTOH, domestic travel has recovered more than in Europe. And domestic routes can be quite high margin. They can also yield a somewhat decent amount of miles for the member (think of transcontinentals or flights to Hawaii).

Carriers like LH similarly face the difficulty of striking the right balance. In the end, however, I think they are closer to the 'our most valuable customers are still heavily restricted in their travel' scenario. In my mind, it's somewhat clearer that euro carriers should turn to blanket extensions than US carriers.

sophialite

Yeah I can't recall what I started with, but I think I had 12 when I initially qualified. The senator selections really helped me pick up more along the way, which will be harder to do because I don't accrue select miles anymore.

It also helped that they counted 2019 in the requalification. I had something like 420k for that year, and along with the double miles promotion, I got around 60k HON miles from quick C/D/J hops around the EU. In terms of actual long haul F travel in 2020 and 2021, I did "only" 3 revenue LX F flights least year and 1 this year. The rest was on AF or mileage redemptions.