GBM.flights

+1
I see zero logic in this hostility towards FTL's and Basic members who took years to cough up at least 125K miles (or half that if it's one way) for that F award. Most likely they are also CC holders to prevent the expiry of the miles.
It may be a good timing to complaint to their bank who has more weight with M&M.
GBM

Tyrolean

http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...l=de&cid=18003

No more redemptions for Blue and FTL. SEN and HON have to call.

airoli

The debate about whether LX First Class cabins can be filled with revenue passengers misses an important point: These revenue passengers do not necessarily have to buy an F class ticket.

If LX can sell some seats in "revenue" F, but instead of releasing the remaining distressed F inventory to award seats, they now add it to the "revenue" C inventory, sell more business class seats against $$ and then upgrade their most valuable customers, then they have dramatically improved their overall yield for C + F on that flight - and offered a pleasant "surprise & delight" experience to some C buyers.

That doesn't make this change a customer-friendly one. But perhaps we'll see an increase of C to F op-ups in the future?

TRAVELSIG

as measured by the booking class.....

airoli

Sadly, that's exactly right.

Concerto

I am so angry about this, having demurely put up with these stupid enhancements the last few years. Can't we, as a group, or even individually, put pressure on them? They are finally going to receive a diatribe of vitriol from me.

LH4116

And I am assuming a C or J fare can sometimes cost more than some A fares…

TRAVELSIG

Also a lot of assumptions about net fares particularly for large corporate clients where a C or J fare may cost less than a Z fare.....

Concerto

It seems the whole airline alliance thing is shifting anyway, with some odd relationships being forged (think VS and DL, as well as EY and AB, not to mention EK and QF). I guess they have to really rethink their strategy in order to remain profitable.

At the same time, for us, as Totti mentioned elsewhere, it sort of makes sense to forget airline FFP/alliance loyalty, and just go for the best deal out there.

h15t0r1an

^ + 1

After the reduction in the categories of people allowed access to LH Gold Lounges a couple of weeks ago, it's looking like LH is progressively pulling benefits away that are normally accorded between Star Alliance members.

With so many airlines recently announcing new relationships outside of their alliance, whether OneWorld or Star Alliance, does this mean these alliances are effectively going to be chipped away and eventually collapse?

h15t0r1an

On LH or LH satellite airlines? you've got to be joking!
.

mbr

Despite the fact I am still SEN I am totally pissed because of this additional change.

It is really sad what the Airlines are doing with their loyalty programs. In fact after all what's happening within the last few years/months they will truly reduce loyalty by pissing of their good customers. In my opinion these loyalty programs are just crap in the meantime. Welcome to Emirates, where the loyalty program is not even required to get free pick-up at home for C/F-Class and an excellent product onboard. Lounges can be considered as pretty nice and most time not crowded. From my side I avoid M&M and *A whenever I can in the meantime.

Since the early times of alliances and loyalty programs I have always stated that the only way to make it a long time success is to make one common loyalty program for the whole alliance and no way to earn any miles on codeshare or connection flights with non-alliance partners. Furthermore that earned miles and miles to be spent for awards have to be unified. This will concentrate customers that are loyal to the alliance and increase yield for all airlines together.

Just my 2 cents.

Fredrik74

And sadly, for many this will mean FR.

Personally I stopped trying to requalify for FTL, something I only did to collect miles for a future F award because even though this is just LX I feel I can't be sure there won't be unpleasant news from others in the M&M sphere before I can manage to get enough miles.

Concerto

I must say, the choice is getting a bit thin in terms of decent alternatives. I am not tempted to the FR stable, although I have had a couple of uneventful (and perfectly fine) flights with them. I am no lover of U2/DS, either.

In Switzerland, there's always Darwin. In Germany I very much like AB, but it's getting a heck of a lot of bad publicity over at the AB forum just now. But for short haul, I would probably continue to book LH/4U. For long haul, I would go over to the BA oneworld stable. At least you can redeem for 1st Class with them.

Crampedin13A

Well BA now seem to be pricing it that way too. While not as nice as the airlines you have mentioned(LH and LX are the only alternatives for me TATL from Toronto or Montreal) if the price differential is less than $1K over restricted CW I'll take that especially with getting 420 TP to LHR as opposed to 280. Will get me to BA Gold and beyond very quickly this membership year. My point on the original topic is that about a year ago almost all F award availability on BA TATL suddenly dried up. The cabins showed empty or maybe 1 or 2 in the cabin on my flights right up to OLCI(anyone can select BA F seats free at time of booking with the exception of the front row so the seat map in this case is quite telling) yet every seat in the F cabin would be full. Perhaps LH group is going this way too. While BA F mightn't be the greatest it's not hell in the air either. LH F is far better but it is also a quantum leap up from their dreadful J seat. CW to F on BA isn't quite that big of a step up.