Yreal

Hey everyone,

Wonder if anyone else ever had this. Doesn't really bother me, but I'm interessted if it other people noticed it.

I'm in my twenties and most of the time roaming around on the cheapest of the cheapest fares i can find. I do a few EU-ATH-EU flights on aegean and some SAS flights for my status. Mostly in contract lounges when they scan my boarding pass, they look up to me and sort of sigh "Gold through aegean... Welcome...".

Anyone else ever noticed something like that? Like aegean gold is lower then a lufthansa gold or something.

Romanianflyer

Senator status at Lufthansa is certainly much harder to attain, even though on paper it has the same Star Alliance benefits of course.

I think it is mostly due to the fact that Miles+Bonus has been infamous in the past for making it incredibly easy to attain *G status, and making it even more easy to retain it. Heck, many bloggers even (stupidly and incorrectly) started to market is as a de-facto "life-time gold status" - which for sure contributed first to a huge increase in European and mostly American new M+B members, and then to the inevitable overhaul of the programme and stricter rules.

Even though I would now rate M+B on more or less the same level as the FF programmes of OZ, SK and TK when it comes to how easy it is to reach and retain *G, I think many lounge employees still have the old situation of a few years back in mind when Aegean was indeed notably easier than all other programmes.

Tafflyer

I would take any such statement as confirmation of having chosen the correct airline to acquire status with. For my flying, a SEN card would mean I had wasted way too much money on LH group flights.

DELLAS

Never had that in all the lounges I have been into. Not that its any of their business either. They are employed to do a job yet you will always get a few that think their job is more important then it really is. They should be treating each customer they welcome the same way.

headingwest

I'm not saying it is always the case, but sometimes the lounge agents do seem to look a little snooty when I hand over the M&B card (LHR springs to mind). I can only assume that they they don't like the thought that someone can get status for cheaper than others. It's almost as if they have to pay for us to get in, or that we are somehow freeloading. But I can live with that!

That said, other times I've felt that they really value my status. At ZRH last November the agent at the SWISS Business lounge went out of her way to walk me over to the Senator lounge and made me feel really welcome.

As with most places, who you meet can really change your mood.

Yreal

I pitty the one whoem had to pay for that SEN card himself...

Ah nice to hear that actualy happens. Last one i had was at LIN, flying brussels airlines for 19 euro

Romanianflyer

Hear, hear!

I'm absolutely staggered that still so many people stick to LH Miles & More. I know several Germans who are absolutely adamant about sticking to M&M where they can reach FTL at most in a good year, while I'm quite convinced that with a bit of good planing they can easily hit *G with most other frequent flyer programmes.

That said, even though I'm not an expert, the new changes at M&M seem to actually improve the programme for many!

bitterproffit

Whenever I am at any place where I deal with customer service, when I leave, they sort of sigh......

KLouis

Do they sigh because they're glad you're leaving or the contrary?

Tafflyer

The mere fact they’re doing this shows what customers think of their offering. I would love to know the numbers from LH group and the realative use of M&M to other schemes. LH are not making getting status far easier out of the kindness of their hearts, but because they think it will affect their bottom line. Or, maybe, that the revenue-based method negatively affected it, which I suspect.

East_and_West

That's a good point. Although maintaining (not earning...) *G through M&B can indeed be somewhat easier than other *A FFP, it's much less so than it may appear at a first glance. It requires four A3 segments for the low threshold which may not be easy if you are not Greece based, and can be very costly if you're not Europe-based and you don't anyway travel to Greece... Moreover this depends a lot on your flight pattern as many fares on other airlines earn from very little to zero. For example I do travel a lot long-haul on LH on P fares which give nada on M&B but 100% on SK's EB. Moreover as SK*G you earn +25% basic points ("award miles" on M&B jargon) on SK flights which can be a generous boost on J/Y+ long haul flights. So I do not think that A3*G is necessarily THAT much easier to achieve, unless you are Greek-based or travelling to Greece often.

That said, as an A3*G I ve never come across the type of behavior described by OP anywhere in the world, but TBH I am not particularly perceptive when it comes to such things. My experience ranges from cold indifference to a kind welcome by name and a warm smile. The vast majority lies somewhere in-between, with the agent giving me just a polite and professional, albeit indifferent greeting after scanning my BP, and then proceeding to the next in line or carrying on with his/her business, most likely without giving a second or even a first thought as to what FFP I hold status with or how I achieved it...

bitterproffit

That's the burning question. lol

lhrpete

Twenty + years ago I achieved lifetime status in the Singapore Airlines PPS Club, you can only earn status in that club by flying in their first and business class. If gives me lifetime gold status in *A. At the same time I was an LH SEN. At the time I could have easily achieved gold status with British Midland but I didn't really fly that much with them and did with SQ and LH. My LH SEN status crashed and burned when my flying reduced due to a change of job but my SQ status remains.

I dread to think how much SQ LPPS cost but it wasn't my money.

These days I bank miles with A3 because they are more useful for my purposes and it's usually what's logged in my bookings unless it's an LH ticket which earns nothing with A3 in which case I dust off the SQ card.

As I look back, I do wonder though, OK BD went out of business but I could have achieved status easily with them whereas I had to be loyal to SQ to get lifetime status. Who was the fool? I would point a finger at myself on that one.

So I say, the fools are the people trying to get in their 100 000 miles with LH when you can get the same status alliance wide for half that or less with relative ease and so if lounge dragons are perceived to look down on your A3 card, just have a laugh at them, it's what I do.

NWIFlyer

I’d have to say I’ve never experienced this, including at the LH lounge in LHR and elsewhere in their wider network. Nor do I ever recall being looked down on for being at BD Gold, which was regarded as the most generous FFP in the Alliance for many years.

I would be astonished if many lounge agents actually even knew what the qualification requirements were for the various schemes. Any perceived slight seems much more likely to be in the mind than nested in reality.

MrArkadin

This!

And tbh I couldn't care less about what some random lounge employee thinks about how I got my status.