Thank you for this post FLYGVA. Very helpful in this discussion.

As you can read on the m&m homepage UA miles will count for hon till 4/1/06 both, in english and german version. Also segments will be counted till that time, so everybody who wants to go for FTL or Sen by segments should start flying frequently in the next 3 month. :D

Perhaps LH could scap lounge access alltogether and hand out a certain amount of access vouchers per year. Perhaps 2 lounge vouchers after re-qualifying for SEN. This would bring it in line with the eVouchers. :D

The changes basically don't affect me. I am however dreading what they will think of next ??

I qualify for SEN on longhaul, mainly with F or C RTW's. I feel sorry for the poor guys on mainly short-haul or domestic Y travel. This could be a boost for prioritypass!

Prioritypass is useless if flying out of MUC / Terminal 2.

Not anymore. There used to be dinners organised in the past (should you be
close to board meetings) but all the benefits are gone.
In the early nineties airline shares used to be frought with all kinds of benefits,
including being hauled to the locations. But these days they are just money
burning machines.
LH is one of very few exceptions.

While I agree on the second part of your post, this introductory humble opinion
is unfounded (and hence an opinion, I agree):
do you think the SEN lounges are flooded with SENs?
Given how dirt easy it is these days to become a *G with UA, AC, or TG.

I think those idiots - such as I - who stick with M&L get what they deserve.

In the past, Swissair Shareholders got 5k miles per year (not per share).
Under STC rules, as a Swiss TravelClub Silver elite (like FTL) you cannot bring any guest to the lounge neither. Personnaly I'd have loved to bring a guest into the lounge (I'll be FTL in 3 months), so this are bad news :td: !

LH's ignores psychology
 

My opinion: I hate to admit it, but I feel that these "enhancements" do make a lot of sense.

From a business point of view, why would LH give status to people who bring almost no revenue (those who are flying dirt cheap fares most of the time)?

However, I feel that the the decision makers of LH are cold calculators and completely ignore the psychological aspect of earning miles/status.

IMO, an FF program is like fishing, like luring the fish onto the hook.
Sure, the fishing gear will cost you a bit (especially short term), but you'll keep the fat fishes (mid/long term)!

Continuously reducing the perks doesn't make any sense on the long term.

I feel the LH chiefs just don't get that: they prefer looking at their numbers and thinking short term.
It may be a good strategy for them: on the short term they can report increased profit to the shareholders and give their career a boost. Long term you say? They are long gone...

flysurfer you are my favourite nemesis - an oponent of style and
importance!
It just happened much like babies happen. No one really knows how but
we all have our suspicons.
But you are right originally, these programs do not sound seductive. I became
FTL and Premier by mistake in the nineties and then the addiction was triggered.
Originally this is how we start - but due the considerable inertia loyality
pograms bring, one cannot plan these things so well.
Maybe your emphasis was that the overall service of a carrier is more important
to you than its FFP.

[no companios for SENs]
I hope that this will not imply that SENs will no longer be *G then :eek: .
You don't mind the dry crackers in the Bus lounges or you don't mind that
the non-SEN *G folks have to enjoy them ;) ?

[Dr. Weero and Mr. Hyde? :D]
Good one.
Nah - I prefer plain stocks. Derivatives if secured in straddles or bands,
minus their (admittedly small) risks become interest products rather than
capital gain products (direct consequence from the Black-Scholes differential
equation) and hence are not gambly enough :) .
Are you extrpolating a universal monetary law from a singular incident?

[dropping M&L]
Not yet. But I am working on it.
And I made grand progress. By giving away awards to friends and gf, I
overcame the magical threshold and allowed my M&L account to sink below
1M miles
Once I will have confidence that UA is going to survive I shall allow this to
go even further.

Yes, but then so are our shares or whatever instrument we use to invest in the company. ;)

Kidding aside: While FTs really are emotional and knowledgable about their FF program, average FFs often are not. Over in the UA forum, there's a thread about the large amount of Million Milers, UGSs and 1Ks who have NO CLUE about their status, their perks and how to use them. There are 1Ks that haven't discovered upgrade vouchers over several years and keep sitting in Y. This is worse than a HON who doesn't know about the FCT, the HON lounges etc.

Yet, clueless FFs are quite common. This is very good, btw, because if every elite was like a FTer, most if not all of our perks would have vanished by now. So while it's great for us and the airlines to have a lot of uneducated yet local FFs, many of them high-yield customers, this also means that a reduction of perks has no siginificant effect on these folks. They don't know what they are losing, and they don't care.

Uhhh...do I really deserve this?

For the record: You picked me. I didn't pick you. :)

The latter. I believe it's fair revenge for the dry cracker treatment I get in UA RCCs, because the UA IFL, which is comperable to an average SEN lounge, is usually off-limits.

You should relocate to Vegas. ;) Of course, my investment in LH is not capped on the upside, and I try to keep my "insurance fee" quite low.

And no, I'm not interested in interest products.

Hm, that sounds funny, like an oxymoron. :)

Now what in the world leads you you believe this was a singular incident? Actually, there have been 5 of these "singular" (double digit % profit in less than a year) incidents with LH alone since May 2004, when I started my little private hedge fund. However, you are correct to assume that LH is one of the weaker (yet safe) and certainly boring (yet safe) investments. Gold, Silver, Palladium and Platin were so much more exciting during the past months, weeks and even recent days. ^

You know, this is so funny! :D Especially the 1M miles part. It's like an alcoholic proudly announcing to the world that he's now down to 5 bottles of Scotch a day...

I think I have never had more than 400,000 miles on my M&M account at any time, usually much less. It's about 250,000 right now. This will change after the STC merger, but still stay under 1M. Only by combining MP, M&M and STC, I'm crossing your "magical threshold", but remember, I got most of these miles by NOT flying. They are basically an investment to fly around non-FF family and friends (I don't have FF family and very few FF friends) in style, yet affordable.

I am not effected by the drop of segment counts.

But I have difficulties to understand, how miles&more does announce such a drop per april-1st and not per january-1st.

If you don't already requalify in just the first three months (jan-1 through march-31 2006), that change is in fact already valid per start of 2006.

weero seems to be typing very fast! That's how he missed those two letters pr that make the difference. I think he meant "a proponent of style and importance!", instead.

Greetingsflysurfer
It was a mere compliment, no offense mate.
And I also decided to pay deference to you by increasing the font size...
Nah - it was fate. The eternal battle against Mayrhuber and his minions
created that constellation.

[RCC = rye cracker club]
Episode 7, "The Revenge of Crackers" premieres hereby.
It so true that the IFLs are SEN lounges :) .
This starts to sound interesting: so it is not are pure derivative which
you are using? Is is a hybrid product such as a convertible?
Maybe not intentionally. But if you design a 'safe' derivative, hereby eliminating
the sigma parameter of the random walk equation, you are left with mu alone.
Which then is nothing than an interest product camouflaged as a capital
gain (or loss) investment.
Common sense and my crystall ball. But then what should I expect from
someone who always ends up on the new C :) . And I also have
friends who always return from Vegas with a profit ... not me though.
At least I have holostic explanation now why you indeed like LH :D !
Haven't followed the other but yes, Gold was a fun game this year, could
not agree more.
I better won't talk then about the status of my MP account :eek: .
You have to see my alcoholism in proportion. That girl already brought
down my LH account SEN account from 1.56M down to 0.99M.
I heard worse comments than yours - worst one was "you are swapping one
addiction for another"..
Guilty as charged nonetheless.
But yes I envy US residents for their opportunities to collect miles for all
kind of reasons. Even if that means that you hand your savings to such
dubious institutions as banks...

Sweet :) .
Even though I would claim that it makes no difference here.
flysurfer is both a proponent and opponent of
style.

I guess this was the definitive answer to his "Dr. Weero and Mr. Hyde"!