In November 2019, Lufthansa announced major changes to its Miles & More frequent flyer program. The changes were initially supposed to kick in as of 2021, though logically enough they were postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.
Continue reading: Lufthansa Miles & More Program Changes 2024
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What’s the deal with TATL partners then?
United is glaringly missing , quite likely due to their partnership with Emirates
FlyingBlue XP tends to be very lucrative to people who live outside their hubs since that short little european hop makes an outsized contribution to the points earned on that itinerary. Mileage runs taking advantage of cheap eurobusiness fares with a connection are also great with FB. Seems like they’ll be the case now with M&M too, so I’m actually pretty happy about these changes. It actually makes M&M a competitive program for *A earning now imo
Haha, you're good at catching the spin masters at LHG! The love to turn s*** into gold.
Well status will be MUCH easier to get. Basically 4 flights to europe with connecting flights and you are SEN. Only good for a year, but way easier to get.
Miles&More was already complicated and they made it even more complicated now.
They should also fix their website to provide actually useful information.
And who in the world thought that "points" and "qualifying points" are good choices? They are to similar and will confuse people.
Bottom line, they want people not to get statuses, so it makes sense.
These changes seem quite OK to me? It is very easy to get frequent traveler (which allows lounge access at LH group lounges) by just doing 2 US-EU return flights? In the past you needed at least 30 flights for that (or 35,000 status miles)...
This is VERY bad for me. Will need to fly FOUR TIMES more often than I do now (even at pre-pandemic levels) just to keep my current status. Or keep track of opportunities for mindless, cheap, circular mileage runs around the Mediterranean (through Europe, Africa and Asia) just to get inter-continental qualiflying points.
I was hoping that the pandemic would have put paid to these changes permanently but I guess not. Time to junk M&M and LH Group, I think. Anyone with suggestions of a better *A frequent flyer programme to join?
@Ben….you said “In business class you’ll earn 10 points continental and 50 points for intercontinental”…..is that one way or round trip? So is a RT Business Class trip between US-Europe 50 or 100 points?
In the last 10 years Lufthansa has become a real shitty airline. I hate to fly with them if I can avoid it.
I wish they would make it easier to get award seats even if it is at a higher mileage like SQ that shows Saver and other options
#Jones. Some of us have to do it. US to Europe 56 times in five years, plus Asia and Africa on top of that. Now I may contribute some of those upcoming trips to LH.
So I guess the Frankfurt-Tunis route will get a surprising increase in business class demand.
Maybe they will fix their website to allow entering a frequent flyer partner number to an existing reservation.
Maybe they will fix their website to allow entering a frequent flyer partner number to an existing reservation.
BUT, front-of-the-bus seats from LAX to JFK or YVR to YYZ are deemed to be on "continental" flights and will earn few points. This is just like the raw deal that Flying Blue hands US and Canadian passengers. Punt.
I’m finding Algiers-Frankfurt-Tunis same day round-trip for $740 in March 2023, which would be 200 points…
So basically star silver is $740 now assuming you’re based in Algiers or around $1000 if you’re based in EU and have get to Algiers to start the mileage run
Think of tier points on BA. Every segment earns points . . . in both directions.
Instead of ORD to IST non-stop on THY, do ORD-JFK-FRA-IST.
I can imagine people doing tier point runs under the new system.
But, in the end, does anyone actually want to be tied up with LH?
LH already has lifetime status. I have been lifetime Senator for a few years now.
If u are willing to fly IST-FRA-ANK on LH then Sure . A 45 minutes flight of 100$ (on TK ) will cost you 12 hours (with layover) and quadruple price ! Do the math and enjoy the points !
"YOU may fly to Europe FOUR TIMES A YEAR, EVERY YEAR, but who else does that?"
People who don't fly enough to earn status? Status isn't free. The whole point is to compel high spenders (such as someone flying overseas 4x annually) to do their spending on LH, instead of a competitor.
I wonder what happens to the Miles accumulated up to now - I have been saving them for years
There is no way to register for Miles & More program, Error appears and i had tried more than 50 times and even written to them with no reply. Highly deplorable.
Nobody with a functional brain cares.
This program has been a joke for decades.
The only reason to be a Miles and more member is the insurance, not the upgrades.
Really surprised at all the hate here. I prefer this new program much much more - gives a chance to those who pay for their own flights and not only corporate travellers a chance to get Senator each year, finding great P deals will be truthfully rewarding.
Another big devaluation (1y vs 2y) and again rules that needs so many explanations that will make things more complicated than before ( does Athenes to Tel Aviv counts as intercontinental?; what if I buy a ticket under UA code but its operated by LH: do I get points or qualifying points ?).
Not to mention the skyhigh thresholds which make Senator for life extremely hard ( imoossible even to use spare qualifying points from previous years). The program is testing its elasticity too much.. I am rather keep going with flyingblue which seems more achievable and straightforward.
Devalue flying with Lufthansa even more, the 2 year status was a big benefit - but now add this to the appalling customer service now, and having to constantly make mileage requests because because 50% of the time your account is not automatically credited. Unless they fix their customer service ( currently sitting on 8 complaints for lost luggage, delays, cancellations for 4 months and more) - the membership will continue to drop as regular travelers seek to move to the Air France and flying blue and to airlines you can trust, airlines who put the customer at the heart of what they do.
everyone should just relax, choose an airline that you like, forget about points or whatever. Let’s be realistic, most people travelling lots are not exactly poverty-stricken - so, buy your own insurance or book a better seat or sit in another airline’s lounge. LH can bring on any programme, I could not care less.
wonder if the 7500 qualifying points>lifetime status is through cumulative points collected overtime or within a set time.
Ben, lifetime status is not new. I have been a lifetime Senator for the past 12 years having been a Senator and HON for many years starting in the late 1990’s
Lifetime status is only for Senator and not possible for HON. Other airlines and hotel groups offer lifetime status for their highest status tier. Personally, I don't see much value in Miles & More's lifetime membership.
I am very unhappy and sad about these changes
status will therefore no longer recognise how much you spend or how long/how far you fly. basically europe to near east will give you as many points as 10-12-14hrs flights to far east or south america.
At same time it will no longer be based on how much you spend. discounted business will give as many points as full flex. Good for customers, but again strange.
And of course this one year renewal means that only the constant flyers will be getting status.
PS: last bad thing: only M&M is changing its system, meaning the lounges will still be overcrowded with star alliance gold members from SAS, United or Agean, who seem to give away status like cookies
It was very restricted until now though, particularly since it was only available to seniors above a certain age. Someone in their 30s could fly Lufthansa on a daily basis for the last 15 years and they still wouldn't qualify.
Hi Jerry,
I'm afraid not. They stipulate that, as far as points are concerned, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will be seen as continental Europe.
If this is correct, then flights on Star Alliance airlines will not receive credit towards tier status. Imagine a paid Singapore Krys Suite booking from JFK to FRA to SIN receives no credit. ANA first class from the US to Japan. There's something fundamentally wrong about this. This seems to work against the basic notion of an alliance.
4 flights to Europe in Business to get SEN, right? If in Economy, seems to need 12 or more flights with connections as well, to get to 2000 points.
Looks like so, but the flights will need to be in Business (and with connections), otherwise much less points for Economy.
It's very strange the threshold for the Lifetime Frequent Traveller! It's so high compared to the Senator. 30.000 for Frequent Traveller is too high if compared to 40.000 for Senator! I think that the correct one should be maximum of 20.000 for Frequent Traveller!!
As I understand (someone please correct if I'm wrong), you'll still get points on those flights, but half of the points need to be on LH Group flights. For SEN you'll need 2000 points, out of which at least 1000 need to be on LH Group.
Reference: https://www.miles-and-more.com/row/en/program/status-benefits/new-statusprogramme.html
Negative for high-spending travellers who do a few long haul trips per year in First - now we easily make Senator each and every year, in the future we won’t. Seems shortsighted to penalise your highest spending customers for people buying cut-rate restricted business fares…
Ben,
there are a few other devaluations which are particularly annoying, at least for me:
- no Senator partner card for HON
- no Senator lifetime card after 10yrs Senator or HON, but only after 40000 Qualifying Points
- Star Points are converted to Qualifying points at a terrible rate (1:2), and Senator Lifetime card is given only to 4 stars and above (i.e after min 18 consecutive yrs HON)
I really can’t believe they claim they’ve simplified the system…it’s way more complex than before! Qualifying Points, Hon points, North Africa which is not Africa…
Considering that Senator is equivalent to toilet paper, for me it’s time to say “bye bye DLH”
Aha: Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are considered Europe.
The 20 minute flight between Nuremberg and Frankfurt will give us as many Points as flying between Frankfurt and Casablanca.
Ben,
What is happening about spending existing miles, how are things going to change?
One thing that is not covered here is whether FT or Sen status gets you a 25% boost on status miles earned on flights with Lufthansa group airlines, as is the case with the current program. Does anyone know the answer to this?
The change is only for status miles, nothing changes on the award miles, you can spend them as usual, existing miles included
Your analysis is wrong. Read the M&M web-page Schlappig links to in the post, the explanation of how the new system works is clearer there.
This is hugely bad news for me. I qualify for status through intercontinental business class flights and have silver/FTL with 2 return flights (even in LH/LX's booking class P!!) in 1 of the 2 year qualification period, i.e. 1 return flight per year on average. With the changes, I will need 1½ return flights per year, which is a 50% increase and I will have to plan some trips carefully so that the outward flight is in 1 calendar year and the return flight is in the next calendar year. What a headache!
AF/KLM Flying Blue requires 1 return flight per year for silver. Thereafter, they require 2 return flights per year for gold whereas M&M will require 4½ return flights per year for gold/Senator with the same headache for me as above. Also, excess Flying Blue XPs roll-over, excess M&M points do not. So for me, it is bye-bye M&M, hello Flying Blue.
According to an earlier map published by LH, all of Turkey is considered Europe.
I fully agree! Same boat. Knife in the back to those who have been lost for many years. British would have given us lifetime already.
Goodbye miles and more
Yeah, that's one of the three weird things about the FTL in the new point system to me:
- you can neither have 325 nor 650 qualifying points / points as all earnings are multiples of 20
- if you would apply the same ratio between Sen and FTL (2000 to 650 or 1000 to 325, doesn't matter...) to the 40,000 Lifetime Sen QP, you would end up at some 13k QP for a Lifetime FTL. The amount you actually need is about triple of that.
- Some people assume that Lifetime Sen is underrated and will even increase to 50k QP or more. However, if you are FTL at the bare minimum i.e. 650 points / 325 QP, you theoretically already need 90 years to get it. You need to have a chance to become a Lifetime member to make this status attractive.
Agree, I used to be able to maintain SEN status with 4x premium eco intercontinental flights a year while under the new program you need 10. It's a clear message that I (and all the other premium eco flyers with me) am no longer welcome in the Senator lounge after 11 years of SEN status. I guess I'll start dealing with the morning departure times of SQ on the EU-SIN leg.
Biggest negative to me is that the whole alliance component of star alliance is now devalued. Relatively little value in anything other than Lufthansa group flights.
Hello, you stated that "If you’ve been loyal to Miles & More up until now, you can earn lifetime status based on your past activity". Can you elaborate on that? will they look at all my past flights?
How woll this reflect on status earned this year? Will this be valid for two years or already only one year?
Also one question I never got answered on my own: can I use bonus flights to earn segments for the 30 segments frequent flyer threshhold (in the old/current system)?
I think this is very negative, so if I book a business class ticket via Lufthansa a flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco and the actual airline flying is United Airlines. Does that mean I won't receive qualifying points. I spent over 37nights sleeping on star alliance aircraft flying worldwide. This limits the Airlines I can actually fly with to keep my status which is ridiculous and the sole purpose for Star Alliance is "Star Alliance". This just defeats the purpose of Star Alliance and I will be looking at a different program going forward. Instead of increasing service and opportunities they are just getting cheaper. Business class seats on Lufthansa are uncomfortable and narrow, I'd chose Singapore Airlines, Eva Airlines or Turkish Airlines any day over Lufthansa. I love the original Miles & More program and their catalog but this is going to alienate a lot of very frequent flyers....
For North Africa flights, the new program is NOT only negative it is CATASTROPHIC… how come it is counted as Europe !!! This is totally unfair… & shows clear bias & distinguish … I am a Senior member & with intensive travel between Germany & Egypt… at the current program I could reach the Senator status within only 6 months of my current travel pattern on economy class … I discussed this issue with other Senators here from Egypt & we all agreed & decided that if the new program will count Egypt as such unfair/ non logical way , we will regrettably stop dealing with / leave miles&more … & will go for other options like miles&simles, … etc . I do believe that Definitely, Lufthansa will lose many loyal travelers if they reconsider this bias & unfair approach towards North Africa / Egypt
No sense. Too many bad changes. In particular the fact that neither the current status nor the paid rate doesn’t imply anything in the calculation
10+ years of loyalty with Lufthansa but will definitely switch to another airline/alliance.
First class passengers are the ones who are actually benefiting from this change. Previously if someone were to fly from FRA-JFK they would have needed 4 flights per year now they are just going to need 2.
I went to the FAQ from the email I received from them and found this as the last Question.
It would appear that if you got your miles through a credit card bonus or spend on a CC, you cannot redeem your miles. This also mean that if you credit your flight to United or AC instead of Lufthansa, you would have no 'paid' service with them.
Am I reading this correct?
"What does it mean that a paid service is required to redeem miles? Why has this been introduced?"
"This rule means that members can only redeem miles if they have been credited automatically at least once for a paid service (e.g. for a flight). In other words, members who have only received miles by signing up to a newsletter or making a mileage request, for example, cannot redeem miles."
This is a serious devaluation for economy and premium economy flyers. I have been a M&M Senator for several years. Really enjoying the perks. Seems like that's going to be bye bye when my status expires in 2 years. With the new system I will barely reach Frequent Flyer status (Lufthansa provides this handy tool with which you can calculate how much more you will have to fly from next year on). As status matching within Star Alliance is almost impossible, I'll have to start looking for an opening with Sky team or OneWorld.
Clearly, those changes are invariably against the passengers. It's not simpler and it's harder to reach status levels. Incidentally, they also made changes to the program 7-8 years ago, which again don't benefit the passengers.
I've been a loyal customer of the Lufthansa group for over 20 years, during ten of which I had a Senator status (upended by the pandemic.) With the introduction of the new program, I'll shop around and won't necessarily have to feel "loyal" anymore. What a shame.
Passengers using the Economy & Premium Economy look to me the most penalized. I am living in Asia and flying back to Europe 3 times/year (pandemic period excluded of course). This year till now I made 2 going and back trips. Of 4 long segments I made 3 in Premium Economy and 1 in Economy, the 4 short segments in Europe all in Economy. I got 28.878 status miles. With the next trip to Europe in December it is enough the combination Premium+Economy in the first 2 segments to reach the Frequent Traveller status (I can get 6.745 status miles).
With the new rules I will need for sure to make 3 flights/year always in Premium Economy for the long segment and even with this I can't reach the points needed to guarantee the status: I would have 600 points and 600 qualifying points. To keep the frequent traveller status I will need to take at least 3 internal segment flights in Asia with Star Alliance airlines to get the 50 point missing.
This is a stupid question probably - but is a flight one segment, or the whole round trip?
Crap. I do 16 Long-haul and 16 short-haul yearly,
Before COVID this amount got me Frequent Traveller LH (silver), Gold Aeroflot and Gold Hainan Airlines.
If I allocate all of this to LH+Group (my preferred choice), I will hit 1200 Qualifing point (double the requirement for Silver, above the 1000 qualifying for Senator (Gold) but be stuck mid-way to Sentaor because another 800 points on an non-Miles&More is needed?
Also, doing 16x longhaul and 16x shorthaul annually gets me the lifetime Frequent Flyer (silver) ..... after what - 25 years! That's the end-of-the lifetime my dears.
hate the changes.
Definitely a devaluation. I’m a senator for
6-7 years now! Let’s say I want to requalify, need 2.000 points, x10 intercontinental flights would bring me the points needed. Flight prices have soared through the roof. So let’s take a really low business class flight for 2.000€
which makes 20.000€ for x10 flights.
For what in exchange ;
Priority check in ! Already included in the business ticket.
Business Lounge, already in my Business Class ticket purchase!
Extra baggage weight, already have x2
32kilos included in my business ticket.
Hotline , everything is going online.
Long haul flights I only travel business so
my Senator status is simply irrelevant.
And on top that’s every year! For me it’s more or less brain dead. Nobody gives something for nothing and I don’t feel like I’m being rewarded for anything.
So, instead of spending at least 20.000€ a year just to have Senator printed on my forehead and sometimes watching the economy check in faster than the priority groups I deceided to spend just 750€ yearly on a Amex Platinum Business card which gives me a FREE priority pass for over a thousand lounges worldwide regardless of which class you are flying,plus one free guest can join in on the fun, plus
the membership rewards can be used for booking flights.
And I choose my airlines.
Worth checking out.
So if I read it right you need to have 1500 European economy flights for lifetime FTL 😀 Given after covid a really frequent traveler does ~40 segments (20 weeks outside of home) they are basically saying do it for 38 years! Year over year 38 years. Nobody survives that long with such travel 😉
If you fly business (which is useless on short-haul) you can enjoy it after almost 20 years. Also if you fly business you don't really need a status as it provides ZERO benefits over the business ticket.
They really might have skipped this option as it doesn't add any value.
Why on Earth a first-class passenger would need status anyway? What is the benefit?
Now especially with miles multipliers being revoked?
This seems like an idea for phase-out of the program.
Please help me get clarity: I’ve been a Senator since 2013 (10 years) and before that a FF -for about 5 years. When I started (around 2006) the Stars program didn’t exist. As of today I have two Stars (10k + star points).
According to the LH website, I don’t qualify for a lifetime status yet (neither FF or SEN) . Besides this, I have well over 100k award and select miles and I just renewed my SEN status until February of 2026.
But In the text above it says that 10 years in the programme (among other things) enables one to qualify for lifetime status (SEN? FF?).
I have written to M&M and LH asking for clarification, but their answers are yet to come, if!
Can the author or anyone help? Thanks so much in advance.
Hello, like Roberto I have a similar situation. I joined up way back in 1996 timeframe, was a Sen for over 90% of the time. Only a short time as a FF, then up to SEN and have been for 9.5 years. I feel I should have had 5 stars years ago... Are they only looking back 10years? I have been Sen since approx 96... with two very short FF periods. Also, i requalified in 2023 with 113000 miles, so I assume I am a Sen for the next two years.. Any comments for me?
Hi, yes, I called them on the qualifying topic, you must fly with a LH, SWISS, Austrian, machine.. even if you buy the ticket from LH.. if you do not board one of the above.. guess what .. NO Q points.. totally defeats the entire philosophy of the "alliance"!
Hello all, If I again requalified in 2023 for Sen can I assume that means I have two years of SEN status? Hope so as it was obtained under the 2023 rules. Anyone know the answer?
What a disaster Lufthansa!? Are you trying to get rid of your clients ? Obviously rich people (flying short haul business often) are way more privileged with the new system. Meaning that they will loose many passengers over the next years to low cost and other airlines! Such a disaster can be seen only in Deutsche bahn!
Bad news all round especially if, like me, you often fly intercontinental using ANA or Singapore (as well as LH and Swiss). This makes maintaining status very difficult in just one year. I’ll probably switch to another group for my next trip to Japan later this year.
I always have world around tickets and now the united flight are not generating points nor qualifying points. On most of my connections there is no Lufthansa or Swiss flights available.
That is a huge disadvantage.