Lufthansa Miles & More Dynamic Award Pricing Live: How Bad Is It?

Typical Lufthansa move. I get that they’re trying to churn money until the last drop, but what annoys me the most is that they always try to cover up these moves as 'something beneficial for the customers.'

RE: "The good news is that awards continue to be bookable through partner programs as before."

I *had* to fly LH F 2X last week just in case partner awards pricing spiked today. 😉

Grateful that LH seats (especially in the O bucket) are still bookable at the same awards rates with AC's program, at least for the time being. I hope this lasts a while.

I don't grasp the fascination some people have with Lufthansa.

Uhm. You forgot to mention that Lufthansa has probably the highest fees of any program. In the past I could buy tickets on Lufthansa for less than what Lufthansa wanted for miles + their fees.

I'm not a fan of how United has gutted their frequent flyer program but at least when you find a ticket with miles you aren't paying the rough equivalent of a new MacBook Air purchase in fees everytime you want to redeem for a long haul flight. I think only BA/IB comes close in Europe when it comes to the sky high fees.

In my eyes Lufthansa was uncompetitive even before these changes. Makes much more sense to credit to Air Canada or possibly United than Lufthansa even on their own metal.

Honestly this is something along the lines I expected. M&M still remains as an alright mileage Programm for the German market. Happy that first class awards are „only“ around 20% more expensive - could’ve been worse. Also the award chart remained the same for a really long time before this. Sweet spots like ANA F NRT-HNL or UA‘s island hopper still remain (if bookable)

Well you say there is no change to First class award availability, but allegris isn't bookable with miles right?

Fascination may not be the right word for all of us who are interested in developments at the airline.

For a substantial amount of city pairs within Europe there's just no real alternative to the LH Group. You might get lucky and find a LCC flying on the day you need to travel- if not, you'll need to spend lots of time and money on car/train journeys in order to avoid Lufthansa and friends.

The above doesn't mean that you necessarily have to get involved in Miles and More. I'm not, but I need to be extra careful with booking classes- I normally have to buy tickets over the phone at least twice a year in order to avoid K/L/T in economy or P in business- to ensure that I don't inadvertently fail to renew my *G status and end up being even more miserable when I have to fly LH yet again. Someone who can't be bothered with researching that sort of thing would be more likely to gravitate to M&M and become invested in the programme and its currency.

The other issue is the relative security stemming from the lack of large-scale transfer partners. IAG have created an entire ecosystem of airlines using their miles and sell gazillions of them through every imaginable channel. AFKL have gone on record as actively wanting to focus their frequent flyer programme on prioritising points transfers and credit card users from a different continent. This type of thing creates serious inflationary pressures which often turn into devaluations that are often unannounced (e.g. the recent Iberia one) and/or brutal (e.g. Flying Blue increasing redemption costs to Africa and S. America by 70% overnight). I'm sure that a fair few people prefer sticking with an airline which is known for a more conservative approach that's not as likely to result in the annihilation of the value of their miles.

Yes, it's neither a great airline nor a fantastic FFP. But not everyone can avoid them.

I’m seeing several EU to US flights at 47K (instead of the previous 56K) in business, which is good. Though, the biggest negative change in my view, which you don’t mention, is that they have done away with the option to pay more miles to reduce the fees. These fees are generally above $1K for a US-EU one-way in business, which makes an award ticket totally worthless.

My last redemption on IB cost less than €120 in taxes and fees for 12 hours in business class. BA are on a different level, of course.

@ Cedric -- Correct, Allegris first class isn't bookable with miles both before and after the change.

Good post Throwawayname

@ Frog -- Good point about that redemption option, I just updated the post to reflect that.

Ben - while non-dynamic awards were supposed to be bookable through the end of June 2, Lufthansa ended up shutting down their booking engine through all platforms all day yesterday so it was impossible to book any first class awards all day. Some of the changes are also really bad - on June 1 the JFK-MUC flight was available in first class for August 12/13 at the standard 115,000 and now that flight is 259,814 miles, so more than double. It’s really disappointing that Lufthansa removed the ability to book these awards a day early.

Really bad i live in zrh so before first class to mexico via fra was 101k one way now it's 158k - same flight out of fra is 124k so it's 50% more expensive now for me

There’s a pretty thorough analysis of the changes by this German website: https://reisetopia.de/stories/erste-eindruck-meilenpreise-miles-more/

They also have two articles with the different mileage values needed per departure point in Europe for more than 50 routes all over the world. Pretty fascinating as there seem to be some very cheap First Class pricing when departing in Sofia or Prague - on the exact same flight.

Website crashed again. Down on Sunday. Down Tuesday after a few hours of operation.
LH M&M IT systems - no one is surprised!

I wonder whether the recent changes have any effect on upgrades.

Lovely move after they spent the past 2 years selling "bundles". What seemed like a good way for an American to get into the M&M market now seems more like a bait and switch.

Does anybody understand why Basic fares are refundable for free while Basic Plus fares have a fee for refunds? Or do we just chalk that down to German logic?

Hi Throwawayname!

I've got a question, as I'm based in Vienna I'm very dependent on LH group and I have the same problem with booking classes as I credit all my miles to Miles and Smiles by Turkish Airlines in order to maintain Star Alliance Gold. Could you please explain the process of getting a better booking class via telephone? How much more does it cost approximately?
Thanks!

It's a reasonably straightforward process.

The Lufthansa website does show booking classes, they're typically displayed in the popup bit that compares the various fare families (e.g. light Vs classic Vs flex). If it shows a booking class that doesn't work for you, you then call their reservations call centre and ask them to book the flights in the desired booking class (e.g. Z for business), explaining that you need it for mileage credit purposes. They'll quote you a price which includes something like €35-40 in booking fees. 9 times out of 10, I reiterate that there's no way of booking the itinerary online and manage to get them to escalate to a supervisor who's then able to waive the fee. If that doesn't happen for whatever reason, you can either HUACA or just pay up if you can't be bothered.

You sometimes get quicker and/or better service if you choose to speak in a language other than English as offshore call centres don't tend to employ many people who can speak Polish, Italian, Greek etc.

I should've clarified that the fare cost for booking e.g. Z instead of P or S instead of L can easily be found by playing around with flight dates and combinations.

For example, if you want to fly VIE-ZRH-MAD in November and you're seeing only the very cheapest fares in K because flights are unlikely to fill up, check out some September dates when they'll be a bit busier and you'll know exactly how much you'll be charged to book in S within the fare family you want. It's never a lot of money within Europe (although I almost always fly with a connection so I am not really familiar with hub fare structures for direct flights ex-VIE).

I had many (many) millions miles and benefited the last 10-15 years of flying First and Business classes many times. It becomes harder and harder to get tickets. And the client support of Miles and More is, by far, the WORST I have ever experienced. Ever. Last but not least : this year we went to Japan with my wife and our 3 girls. 5 seats in Business Class (Flex Plus, ie 1m miles all in). One seat was not working properly, food is out of stock in 5mn which means you hardly have 1 choice left, you pay 25 euros per person per flight for wifi, you have wines that you and me would pay 10 euros in a shop. All of this for a ticket sold at 7-8000 euros (LH). Pathetic. I will use my remaining miles and then.... no more. I leave my seat for the next customer.

Have you tried searching for one way award flights recently?? Or even return ones? The amount of miles required for flights to Tokyo or Singapore are CRAZY. 20%? Make it 100%! Also for business and Economy! I think they had these lower fares at the beginning only to prove the changes were favorable to customers. But now…

I flew many times from San Francisco to Naples or Rome in Business Class. - My favorite route is SFO to Zurich + Zurich to Naples. I have taken advantage of the Bundle n Go specials to accumulate miles multiple times. The change is absurd. I was paying about a $78 fee + about 75k in miles. Now the "fee" is over $1000 euro for business class ticket. This is in addition to about 71k miles. Rip off. The fee increased over 8x the former fee for the same Business Class ticket from USA to Europe. It seems they are wanting to lessen the number Award tickets they make available. USA to EUROPE = NO WAY. However, their award tickets within Europe are better.