Questions and Answers

Dear Ben,

I hope this message finds you well.

I am a relatively frequent traveler with Swiss and Miles & More, flying economy (usually lowest) within Europe, and business (Z or P) when flying intercontinental. I have a few stateside trips in a year, and last year hit around 80,000 miles, while this year I am only at around 30,000 miles (due to less holidays and therefore less travel).

I was having a look around, and it seems like you can achieve Gold Status with Mileage Plus at 50,000 miles, which automatically grants you Star Alliance Gold, getting you all the perks such as early boarding, extra luggage, etc. With Miles & More, it’s only after attaining 100,000 miles that you get an equal status, albeit for 2 years rather than just one.

Considering that I will be able to put my Mileage Plus number on any flight with a Star Alliance airline, would it not make sense for someone like me to use them rather than Miles & More? It just seems like all the benefits of Gold would be available to me if I simply switched loyalty programs.

Please let me know your thoughts, it would be great to hear back from you if you get the time.

Wishing you safe travels,
Dominic

A couple of things to keep in mind:
– when using UA miles to fly on Swiss or LH you’ll only have access to partner award space. That may not be an issue in economy but they definitely hold back some premium seats for M&M members only, at least until a couple weeks before the flight.
– UA charges more miles for flights on partner metal when there is a competing UA flight. So for intra-Europe flights you should be fine but flights to the US on LX/LH will cost more UA miles than if the TATL leg is on UA.

On the plus side:
– Unlike M&M, UA miles don’t expire as long as you have activity in your account every 18 months
– UA doesn’t incur those nasty fuel surcharges that LX & LH pass on.

Hope that helps. Maybe others can chime in with other advantages of one side vs. the other.