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Get 10,000 Mile & More miles with the UK credit card – biggest bonus in 11 months

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UPDATE – MARCH 2025:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly directory of the top UK travel credit card offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Credit Cards’ menu above.  Thank you.

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Lufthansa and MBNA have brought back a decent sign-up bonus for the Miles & More credit card.  This is the first increased bonus on this card since November 2015 and the first since the 0.3% cap on interchange fees came into place.

Normally the bonus is a dull 1,500 miles. However, until 30th November you will receive 10,000 miles.

Full details can be found here.

The card has no fee.  The representative APR is 22.9% variable.   This is 6% higher than it was a year ago.

The miles are paid in two instalments:

1,500 miles with your first purchase (as per normal)

8,500 miles when you spend £1,000 within 90 days

You will also receive a £15 discount code valid against a future Lufthansa flight booking.  I would not value this highly as such codes are commonly available as regular HfP readers will know.

The cards come as a double-pack with an Amex and a Visa. The earnings rate is surprisingly good – 1.5 Miles & More miles per £1 on the Amex and 0.75 miles per £1 on the Visa.

You also receive a 33% miles bonus on ALL your spending for the first six months, on both cards. This takes the Amex up to 2 miles per £1, a very impressive earnings rate for a free card.

One of the key benefits of the Miles & More credit card is that it stops your Miles & More miles expiring. Without the card, your miles have a 3-year expiry. Unlike Avios, Miles & More miles expire after three years even if you have earned other miles in the meantime.

The card has no annual fee.

The issuer is MBNA, which also issues the American Airlines, Etihad, Emirates, Virgin and United cards in the UK. They are generally quite good at accepting modest earners (my Mum, who is retired on a modest pension, got a BMI card with no problem a few years ago).

You cannot churn MBNA cards. If you have already had the Miles & More card, you should not receive a second sign-up bonus if you apply again although they are happy to give you the card.  In reality, if it has been a few years, you may find that you do get it – but don’t count on it.

Miles & More miles only have value for long-haul redemptions, due to the crazy taxes on short-haul flights. These are often higher than the cost of buying a cash ticket outright ….

Miles & More does runs monthly mileage sales which often have very good bargains – see this example for example.

Miles & More is NOT an American Express Membership Rewards partner, so you cannot top up your balance directly using Amex points. The only option would be to transfer Amex points to Starwood and then to Miles & More, but that only gets you 0.5 M&M miles per 1 Amex point, or 0.625 if you transfer 20,000 Starwood points at once to get the 5,000 miles bonus.

You could, of course, also get the Starwood Amex card (review here) with a sign-up bonus 10,000 points and transfer those into 10,000 Miles & More miles.  Lufthansa is also a Heathrow Rewards partner if you have any of those to convert.

You can find out more about this sign-up bonus on the Miles & More website here.


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – March 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 120,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Up to 60,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Comments (29)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Rob says:

    Is there any chance there will be a signup bonus on the United card from MBNA soon? IIRC they are more lucrative when it comes to crediting heavily discounted economy tickets.

  • Keith says:

    Is there a way to merge points with Star Alliance carriers? I haven’t really collected many since I was Gold with bmi 🙁 I now have a few k with SAS. Ideally I’d like to pick one of them and stick with that – so maybe M&M is the way to go, but I don’t really want to lose the SAS points.

    • Rob says:

      No you can’t. You can use SAS miles for Radisson hotel rooms – I used 15,000 of mine for a room at The Mayfair in London earlier this year.

    • Zander says:

      Unless you fly frequently on Lufthansa group airlines (and I mean frequently), M&M isn’t the way forward for long term earning keep SAS and transfer your SAS miles to Radisson gift vouchers or flights.

  • AA says:

    Do I understand right that miles would expire after 3 years regardless of how many miles have been credited, but if you have the credit card and spend on it, miles will NOT expire?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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