SmilingBoy

I had no idea, but indeed, you can get DUS-LHR-DUS for €222 in business class. Now if I were somebody doing mileage runs... But actually, I rather stick to the Eurostar to get to London.

SmilingBoy.

SleepOverGreenland

No word against your assumption, that HALF of the flights may have empty seats or would have even more empty seats without ZSHOTs.

But still on the heavy loaded flights, I assume, there are already some ZSHOTS and ISHOTS (upgraders) on many of those. Still C may become closed and they do not sell any C ticket anymore to a M&M or FTL. It means, LH may loose that business to another airline or might be still lucky, if one can route through another airport with LH (e.g. PDX to SFO worked for us twice). In case they do not reserve a few seats for last minute SENs and HONs they have to find volunteers, of course. But they do not sell further full fare C seats to low yield customers and look for a volunteer ZSHOT or ISHOT. And of course they do not sell a F ticket in a sold out F cabin, even having some ASHOTs and OSHOTs in there. Who may probably volunteer to another flight, if they get a few eVouchers.

Anyway, all the discussions in this thread are based on the 0401 M&M changes and the value of particular customer groups. I find some discussions very "interesting". I mean, does anyone really believe, that LH doesn't know, what they do. If a business entity introduces changes it is well known since decades, that those changes WILL HAVE impacts on the one end and impacts in the other end. Some may benefit, whereas some others may not.

For sure, a profitable service organization like LH is able to analyze and balance their introduced changes against their existing data base. Nothing is done without thinking and rethinking. I would trust LH, that they indeed know very well, what they do. Some may like it, some not.

flysurfer

They did in my case, as LH called me (the OSHOT) up and gave me 500 EUR for flying one day earlier, so they could sell another F ticket in the sold out cabin.

flysurfer

I thought about this and came to the conclusion that pax on C fares w/o status aren't "loyal" as in "big profit bringers". They either don't fly much at all (thus no status) or are simply looking for the best deal/routing (thus randomly switching between airlines and alliances). So LH sticks with the loyal ZSHOT SEN instead of selling one more C ticket to a "one-time" pax and investing time and money to make additional room for that pax. As you said, LH will always make room for a C pax with SEN or HON status. And as my experience shows, they also (try to) make room for F fare pax when the F cabin is already fully booked.

Of course, inventory management will try to do their best to sell just the right amount of seats to Z-SHOTS, O- and I-SHOTS, E,U,T-SHOTS etc. in order to not lose full-fare pax because of sold-out cabins. It's all about predicting loads, and sometimes, those predictions aren't just entirely correct.

SleepOverGreenland

That is good to know. I didn't experience this situation as HON so far, but ended up with a sold out F cabin as a SEN more than once. So looking forward to see, what will happen in such a situation next. However, a sold out F cabin became less likely after the 080104 changes.

On your second post: You might be right with your thoughts. Luckily we do not drive this business and let the specialits take the responsibility for all that loading and booking science.

flysurfer

Btw, regarding revenue vs. profit, HONs can we "worse" than all Z,E,U,T-SHOTS combined by reserving (and getting) a guaranteed C award seat on an almost sold-out flight. Chances are that LH could have sold that seat to a full-fare C pax - maybe even to one of your employees. Again, LH prefers to please the long-term profit pax (aka HON) over a one-time profit bringer. So here we have it: the HONSHOT traveling on an award ticket and occupying a full fare revenue seat.

andre1970

Everyonce in a while we have this (interesting IMO) discusssion here. I agree with flysurfer and others. Here's what I wrote a couple of months ago...


(sorry, no Wolf pic this time)

roundtheworld

there are passengers who actually do this. I could go for a resticted Y but choose F instead. No Z on my routing though. If I had a Z routing i would maybe reconsider, and upgrade to F but not sure, as my routing is usually 90% full in C and F. And even as a HON I don't have upgrade guarantee to F.

flysurfer

And that's why you are HON+++ ^

I have to admit that after my monthly income has climbed into the six figures, I'll probably buy F fares or charter jets for my personal travel enjoyment, as well. Until then, I'll stay a lowly ZSHOT by choice, as I simply don't feel comfortable spending close to 10,000 EUR for a marginally better seat and a serving of caviar.

bertheike

May I ask you, if they called/contacted you ? Or did you ask them ?

flysurfer

They called me.

totti

Had the same thought. LH didn't reduce the miles needed to become a german based FTL/SEN just because they want to please some pax. They were able to analyse earning behaviour of german pax after the last M&M changes (8/1/2004) for more than one year. It's much likely that they know pretty sure how may M&M members will qualify for status after the 4/1/2006 changes. Probably there are some mileage runners out there who try to earn status after this changes, but is might be a manageable group of people.