I beg your pardon at the top of this post, as this is a topic where people tend to think I envy their 150 flights to OUL and I begrudge them their tarmac limousine. I don't, I really don't.


I've looked into all OW programs and their publicly known super-tiers, in order to compare with AY platinum Lumo. By super-tier I mean what is offered to a flyer that already has earned the program's Emerald tier.

I can find only 2 OW airlines that has an official super-tier: AY and QF. Further, I find 3 airlines with thresholds inside their Emerald tier, releasing perks with increased flying. For the 3 with threshold-perks I chose the level with perks similar to Lumo.

There may of course be secret invite only programs of which I know nothing. But these tiers are not really comparable, as they are not meant to strive for.

I don't know exactly how to classify JL JGC diamond and all the cards from Lantam so they are excluded, and I am by no means an expert in these programs, so I may very well have missed or misunderstood some things.



Nevertheless, with these limitations this comparison still gives:
* No program, besides AY, offers a segment qualification for their super-tier.
* One program reserves super-tier for high spend in premium cabins only (disqualifying econ flyers altogether from the super tier)
* Tier-point qualification falls into 2 categories. BA, AY, QF with roughly requires 3x the tierpoints of normal emerald. CX asks only 1,5x tierpoints, but there may be an upper non-public threshold for more perks.
* Perks of super-tier varies of course, but giveaway card is omni-present. Lounge-passes of different qualities and upgrades are also very common.

It most certainly looks like the programs have very different targets. AA is on one extreme end, making an exclusive club for premium flyers with high spend. AY looks to be on the other extreme, catering to the shorthaul commuter.
CX has put in many steps in their ladder, with smaller requirements and smaller perks. So their take looks to be to give many small incentives for increase flying, which is rather different from the others which have more of a big bang approach.

Latam has also sort of supertier, black signature.

Great overview. I'd probably separate them out into 'day of travel' benefits and general benefits (e.g. partner status cards, upgrade vouchers).
Here's another view on the whole thing where this separation makes sense: reciprocal honoring of 'super tier' benefits.
As BA GGL/CCR I already get some AA Concierge Key benefits. On the other hand I assume that the BA Concorde Team/Special Services, CCR lounge access or car transfers could be offered to for instane AA CK customers.
Providing some of these day of travel benefits (better lounges, personal assitants, car transfers, ...) are rather expensive to operate and are currently limited to the carriers own 'super tier' elites. These services could be offered to more customers to lower the relative cost.

Concorde Room card is not the top tier at BA; in fact it's not a status level. The top tier is Gold Guest List (for flying) or Premier (for influencing travel spend towards BA).

CX also has a by-invitation only Diamond Plus tier. My understanding is that this status is awarded to people with considerable spend both in relative and absolute terms (e.g. be among the top 1% spenders among CX Diamonds, threshold of which lies much north of 100k USD annually). The mid-tier benefits are not a tier per say, rather milestones to incentivise more flying on CX/OW.

People on the CX forum are probably able to provide more in-depth knowledge about this one.

Thanks for all comments, will try to add&change the chart accordingly.

And just like I said in OP, I am looking to compare everything that is above normal emerald, well knowing not all programs offers distinctive tiers. But since AY decided to make lumo a tier and AY is my angle on the occurance, "super-tier" was my approach,even when it is a bit misleading for some programs.

your QF comment about "confirmed upgrade 7day out" is misleading. its not upgrade for free, rather unlike other lowly Platinum whos upgrade request (using own point) come closer to say 76 hours prior to departure, P1 request processed even sooner.

CX Diamond plus is strictly revenue based, the card would state DM+ and you are recognized as such. CX also have a "invitation" membership which is non revenue based rather ggiven to influential figures and heads of government or CEOs of multinational conglomerate of high profile. invitation are classified as regular diamond tier (emerald) and not the super tiers. .anacdotally i suspect DM+ equiring 3x regular emerald alongside AY and QF seems about right, but it must come from hard money and critetia is withheld. i would assume most need to be CX based so some poor bloke doing LONE6 every week wont qualify for it

duplicate

Yes, will try to make it clearer that the perk is the "early" confirmation, not the upgrade itself. I found it to be an odd perk, but just like you say regular emeralds has there upgrades cleared only 2 days in advance, so in comparison it must be a major advantage worth something to the platinum one member.

What CK benefits do you get as GGL?

Did a quick update of the chart in OP.

Added Latam, which has 2 qualification paths (making it more difficult to add to a comparison)
The 2 paths are either lower TP requirements but 100% on own metal or higher TP and 16 longhaul premium cabin segments on own metal. Both paths requires a certain spend as well.

While Latam offers no segment path to super-tier, the option 1 could cater to a commuter as it "only" need you to collect 1,75 times as many TP as a regular emerald.
However, the 130400 TP needed equals 1047 ARN-HEL segments in cheapest Y. But at least 525 r/t tickets HEL-ARN would meet the spend requirement (≈20 000€).


At BA forum there is a guide to GGL and someone was kind enough to calculate just how much flying 5000 TP is. If you are doing GGL by segments, you would need 250 longhaul segments in cheapest economy class.


To me, it is very clear that Finnair's segment qualification to Lumo is an anomaly. Finnair's 150 segments with no spend requirement makes Lumo a very very different super-tier than all the rest.

Maybe Finnish people are very different

Finnair is not for Finns. Could say Finnair customers are different.

Great comparison, Intuition!

The table further confirms my assumption that Lumo is primarily geared towards two types of pax: those who commute to ARN/OUL (to discourage them from flying SK/DY) and those who fly at least monthly between Asia and Europe in J, including both Asians and Europeans.

If we look around this forum, I think quite a few Lumos are actually Finns or Finland based.

Very wild guess - while the majority (?) of longhaul premium flyers are probably foreign based, they are not frequent enough to make Lumo (or just credit to their "usual" FFP). The "crazy commuting" Lumo is FIN based nearly by definition.