paulusst

Another classical example of LH's marketing blah-blah. I knew the servcie charge was comming and would be a price increase of 5-9%, ok life is getting more expensive all over. But this appaling wording annoucing it really tops everything the marketing guys at LH have said so far to sell reductions in service or price increases. Disgusting!

On top of it, they decided to have the same ticket charge for internet bookings. So I pay them EUR 45 for consulting and tickekting services when doing all the work by myself I'd rather give those EUR to a nice TA!

curt

Exactly! The correct marketing blabla should be:

"We increase fares for continetal european flights by €30 and for intercontinental flights by €45. We expect you to do all the work. Furthermore, we will switch all our german phone numbers to (01805)-prefixes so that you can't take advantage of cheaper call-by-call numbers. The new enhancement was brought to you by our wonderful "marketing department"."

ralfkrippner

How much will their sales to non-corporate customers decline (at least for the first months)? I guess something above 20% at least.

Who will profit in the end? That's obvious: all LCC's and those few airlines that keep the (well deserved) comission for the Travel-Agents...

mith

werent they planning on lowering the base fares? insteadt of 111 EUR for RTF, it would be 81 EUR plus the 30 EUR booking fee??? since it comes from the marketing dept, it would sound great... especially for those flights which include a change in MUC, FRA, they will be advised as "1 EUR" (plus 30 EUR booking fee plus 80 EUR taxes and security surcharges...)

curt

No, definitely not. The are just slashing TA commission, making the gross fare a net fare. "Dis-Service Fee" is on top of that!

mith

the rewe travel agents will charge an extra 13 euro on top of the LH ticketing fee of 30/45 Euro. booking online will only cost a total fee of 20 Euro, so I doubt LH will charge 30/45 for online bookings, if the agencies have lower fees...


Sales
Rewe-Reisebüros legen Vermittlungsentgelt fest

[13.08.2004/14:15] Die DER Reisebüros, Atlas Reisen und Derpart haben die Höhe des Vermittlungsentgelts festgelegt, das sie vom 1. September an für den Ticketverkauf erheben. Für ein elektronisches Ticket auf Inlands- und Europaflügen werden 43 Euro pro Ticket fällig. Für ein elektronisches Ticket auf Interkontinentalflügen beträgt das Entgelt 58 Euro. Für Papiertickets wird ein Aufpreis von acht Euro berechnet. Ein im Internet gebuchtes Ticket kostet 20 Euro. Für Stornierungen und Umbuchungen nach der Ticketerstellung verlangen die rund 1.230 Reisebüros 25 Euro.

Football Fan

It's ridiculous that they charge the fee also for Internet bookings. Oh, of course, the fee and the way is communicated is YET ANOTHER slap in the face of so far loyal LH customers.

paulusst

now thats really a joke. You call them to put you on the earlier flight and they charge you EUR 25 for a few key-strokes ??? Did not know travel agencies were law-firms ....

In that perspective LH is quite generous, at least rebooking is free. Lets wait and see if there will be some sane online agencies which will undercut these prices.

BTW. My travel-agent will charge EUR 23 from Sep on. He thinks there will be quite some competition going into the market with 19,99.

I have no problem with the service fee, its the communication of LH that makes me sick. Everything they do is an "enhancement" They really must think their customers are dumb a$$holes ...

Meilensammler

In another effort to achieve more cost-transparency Lufthansa will introduce a fuel-surcharge of 2 euro per segment for domestic and european flights. Intercontinental 7 Euro per coupon. Starting Aug 24th.

ngfan

I fully agree although I still have problems with that fee as long as LH (and all the other "Trittbrettfahrer") don't reduce their airfares by the commission they used to pay to the TA's... That's why I believe that the service fee wasn't introduced for transparency reasons but to increase fares. TA's might now get their costs covered for shorthaul flight bookings but are far away from what they used to get for a longhaul ticket...

weero

Technically, if the base fares were lowered appropriately, the service fee would be a fair concept, especially as it would allow the TAs to look for good fare deals rather than having to optimise their percentage. But like are new charges, they come on top of fuel, security, airport, and soon to be luggage, boarding, food, lavatories. seat cleaning, and on board entertainment.

chapinpirulin

So in order to optimize what you get for your buck, we should all go and place our orders with the SEN-hotline. But first make a reservation, change them 2-3 times and then do some further re-booking of flexible tickets. That way we can ensure that the €45 are really needed to cover the cost of the service

paulusst

Let's wait and see what LH's wording will be this time. Maye they admit the increase but blame it on the bloody rich Oil-Sheiks and the usual international finance gang ( a la Oskar L. likes to do). And in the same moment levy the fuel-charge on the "very much fuel-consuming" AiRail too

paulusst

BTW. there will be no service fee for award bookings for the time being. That really came as a surprise. Maybe they didnt dare to "enhance" M&M two times in one month .... No word about the fuel-charge for "free" tickets so far, SEN line didnt know about this surcharge, but told me that it is very common to read these things in the press first. Seems LH doesnt only have a problem communicating with their customers ....

jreichel

Wait a minute - there ususally is much more to it than just a few keystrokes. Granted, if you are traveling on a fully-flexible ticket, it's just a matter of changing the reservation. My agency won't charge you for that and I doubt that others will do so.

But if you are using a fare which involves a rebooking fee, the hassle for the TA is enormous. The phone call is just as short for you as it would be with a flexible ticket, but after you hung up the TA starts working. An MCO has to be printed for the rebooking fee which goes entirely to the airline. No commission for us. Then the MCO has to be linked to the eTicket and the flight coupons concerned have to be stickered. Your credit card has to be charged. An invoice has to be printed. Still no commission so far for us. That's when finally our 25 EUR come in. Pretty cheap if you compare it to a short conversation with another professional like your doctor or lawyer.

Don't get me wrong - I don't like the way it is going to be, but it's LH who is to blame here. They used to pay us 30 % commission for rebooking fees, because rebooking is much more work than creating a new booking. Now we get 0 %. Go figure...