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Originally Posted by Tyrolean
I know FTL who swiched about 10.000 Euro of travelbudget (Yes you can be FTL with that budget and not SEN!) for lower reasons.
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a) a lot of smaller flights and not the long ones
b) being a German means afair >13x000 miles to become SEN |
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Originally Posted by nixande
b) being a German means afair >13x000 miles to become SEN
Actually, you can be SEN ex Germany for less than half that money. A typical V fare MUC-LAX averages at EUR 700 and brings in 15,000 status miles. 7 flights in a calendar year will easily bring you over the 100,000 miles threshold, that's EUR 4900. And V is even upgradable. If you insist on a German mailing address, add 2 more flights for EUR 1400. |
Originally Posted by flysurfer
That's just not true. The unfrequent Z flyer (me, for example) likes status, because he also has cheap domestic and European flights (T,E,U). He (me) also likes award miles and vouchers, as he likes to upgrade his unfrequent Z flights to F (when there's space) or to book the occasional F award trip for himself or family & friends. So he (me) gives his loyalty (revenue & profit) to LH instead of always choosing the airline/alliance with the cheapest Z fare.
... So my guess is that LH understands that this special type of "ZSHOT" (me) is important for their bottom line. That's why they hand out the perks to keep the ZSHOT (me) loyal. Also consider that ZSHOTs like me are decision-makers. We are free to decide when to fly, what COS to fly and with carrier to chosse. So we are more easily lost to the competition than a business traveller working for a huge multinational with negotiated fares and many internal travel rules. Since I VOLUNTARILY give LH more than 15,000 EUR of my private money in annual revenue for 12 longhaul seats that would probably stay empty (or filled with upgraders) at least half of the time, I guess I might not be such a bad customer after all. I fully agree with you and you describe exactly my behaviour / decision process for my 12 annul trips from DFW to Germany. Cheers, Stefan |
Originally Posted by Tyrolean
BTW what are the costs of an FTL?
.... - Priority check-in - no cost - Lounge use - only LH-Biz-Lounges. The lounges are there anyway so only the food (which food) and drinks consumed count (Average 5 Euro) If you distribute all the fixed lounge costs on all Biz-Pax and FTL it wont be hight as well. Cheers, Stefan |
Originally Posted by flysurfer
Nobody said everybody spending 10k will be SEN. I just said that it's not true that nobody can be SEN for 10k.
Actually, you can be SEN ex Germany for less than half that money. A typical V fare MUC-LAX averages at EUR 700 and brings in 15,000 status miles. 7 flights in a calendar year will easily bring you over the 100,000 miles threshold, that's EUR 4900. And V is even upgradable. If you insist on a German mailing address, add 2 more flights for EUR 1400. Anyway, your point is a fair point, and it is actually far more easy to be silver or gold with M&M than let's say BA. There, you have no chance at all of being silver unless you buy flexible tickets (B,Y) |
Originally Posted by Fly-Swiss
OK, but who goes to LA, 7 times a year in Y (so in theory leisure trips).
Luckily, my years of Y are over. :D And since your post concedes that we are a rare species, you actually fuel my argument. ;) To keep us, the rare species, loyal (as we are paying significant $$$ for seats with a high probability of staying empty otherwise), LH has to give a little sumthin extra. And as long as they keep doing that, I'll stick with them. |
Originally Posted by Fly-Swiss
OK, but who goes to LA, 7 times a year in Y (so in theory leisure trips).
Anyway, your point is a fair point, and it is actually far more easy to be silver or gold with M&M than let's say BA. There, you have no chance at all of being silver unless you buy flexible tickets (B,Y) |
Being able to access a oneowrld lounge every time you fly even though not on BA is a reason for me to consider going for gold.
While you need 1200 points (400 for silver and 800 additional for gold) at the first time, you only need the 800 points to retain it. And if you have one RTW ticket in business, you can make silver, gold and renew gold in one trip with a crazy itenerary - or make it a bit less problematic. On contrair to that you need to fly once 13x000 miles to get it but after that you only need it every two years. But looking at the restrictions for SEN I am actually going for BA Gold instead. They don't have enough flights for example inner German, but if I fly from HAm to bigger German airports, they usually have a BA lounge available. ;) |
I remember flying MUC-xFRA-xSFO-LAX-SYD-xSFO-xFRA-MUC on UA in C (upgraded from Y with 1 op-up and 2 SWUs) in April 2004 for about EUR 1000. If I had taken this trip during UA's annual double EQM promo period, I'd have risen from zero to *G (PremEx) with this ticket alone.
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Originally Posted by flysurfer
That's just not true. The unfrequent Z flyer (me, for example) likes status(...) the profit is considerable simply BECAUSE that C seat would otherwise have stayed empty with a significant probability.
(...) Since I VOLUNTARILY give LH more than 15,000 EUR of my private money in annual revenue for 12 longhaul seats that would probably stay empty (or filled with upgraders) at least half of the time, I guess I might not be such a bad customer after all. |
Originally Posted by totti
Just as a side note: if it just comes down to status BA Gold is much more easy to earn than SEN. You can buy cheap (or lets say restricted) C tickets e.g. FRA-LHR for less than 250 EUR. Each of this return trips will earn 80 point and with a non UK/USA address you only need 5 of this trips to be silver (~1250 EUR) or 15 from zero to Gold (~1250 EUR + 2500 EUR = 3750 EUR).
Concerning the recent changes: There might be some cool Consulting guys out there who are mad that their company doesnt pay C anymore and they are going to loose their twice weekly SEN-Lounge Happening plus C check-in. But as stated before - times changed. |
Originally Posted by SleepOverGreenland
Although I agree in general with your statement, I slightly disagree with your assumption of empty (unsold) C seats. It happens just to often, that about 2 weeks ahead of a requested flight some of my employees (just M&M or FTL) can't get a seat anymore in paid C. Sold out - so sorry. No problem for HONs and SENs and maybe LH keeps some free seats for this group and the last minute bookings - I don't know. But I know for sure, that we have to plan very carefully and long time ahead for our non-frequent M&Ms and FTLs travelling, e.g. with optional bookings. Based on our experience this has been true for several destinations in USA, including SFO, ORD, ATL, MIA, DEN, IAD.
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Originally Posted by totti
Just as a side note: if it just comes down to status BA Gold is much more easy to earn than SEN. You can buy cheap (or lets say restricted) C tickets e.g. FRA-LHR for less than 250 EUR. Each of this return trips will earn 80 point and with a non UK/USA address you only need 5 of this trips to be silver (~1250 EUR) or 15 from zero to Gold (~1250 EUR + 2500 EUR = 3750 EUR).
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