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Lufthansa’s Miles & More moves to revenue-based miles earning from today

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In what may be a model for BA’s upcoming Avios revamp, Lufthansa’s Miles & More scheme moves to revenue-based mileage earning for tickets issued from today.  Existing bookings are not impacted.

In theory, it is meant to be simpler and to reward those who buy more expensive tickets.

(Regular readers will know that I disagree with this model.  The majority of people who ‘buy’ higher priced tickets are spending their employers money, not their own.  In many cases the employer will have a route deal which forces the flyer to use Star Alliance irrespective.  People who are obliged to fly Lufthansa irrespective of their genuine loyalty to the airline get more miles, whilst leisure travellers and small business owners – who genuinely have a free choice in who they fly with – get less.)

This is the chart (click to enlarge):

Miles & More changes to earning

The € value used is ‘base fare plus airline-levied YQ surcharges’ which means they will exclude Air Passenger Duty (for UK departures) and airport fees before calculating what you earn.  This could lead to cheap one-way tickets from Heathrow earning under 50 miles!

Codeshares will be based on the operating airline and not the marketing airline.

Except:

“The new system applies to all tickets sold by Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings or Brussels Airlines. If you book via a direct sales channel of Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings or Brussels Airlines, i.e. the website, miles will be awarded based on the new system. If you book via a third-party sales channel, i.e. a travel agent or online travel agency, you will be able to tell by the ticket number whether your award miles will be calculated according to the new system. If the first three digits of your ticket number are 220 (Lufthansa), 724 (SWISS), 257 (Austrian Airlines) or 082 (Brussels Airlines) or Eurowings, the new system applies to your flight – if not, the award miles are calculated according to the old system. The one exception are tickets purchased through a tour operator. Here award miles are allocated according to the booking class, irrespective of the ticket number. In rare cases where no fare information is available, Miles & More reserves the right to continue to award miles according to the booking-class-based system.”

So …. the chart above is what you get, except when you don’t.  If you want to earn miles under the old system, you still can!  Simply use a third party booking agent or a Star partner such as LOT or United which can also issue Lufthansa tickets.

More confusingly, status, select and HON Circle miles will continue to be awarded under the current system.

For readers who earn the bulk of their miles from non-flying methods such as credit card spend, there is unlikely to be much difference to their earning.  Lufthansa claims that the new system is neutral in terms of miles awarded, which implies that those buying cheaper tickets (with their own money) will be worse off.

Comments (75)

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

  • Tom says:

    O/T..but since this is bits.. I suspect this piece on Amex reducing merchant costs (and the impact it might have) is of interest to this audience:

    https://www.ft.com/content/715d785e-23fc-11e8-ae48-60d3531b7d11

    • Thomas Howard says:

      I did start to think the only way for Amex to go in Europe is to match visa/MasterCard acceptance and make up their lower fee in volume. Doesn’t change the potential cash back/airmile earning potential much overall though, just means we might end up with one less card in our wallets.

  • Roger says:

    Rob,

    Here is an article idea for you.
    Analysis on whether using SPG/BAPP to refer others (particularly If within family/OH etc.) makes any sense in case if there is a Platinum card involved (Max. 5 referral though)

    • Polly says:

      Makes no sense if a Plat holder in the family..as its 18k to the referrer regardless which card you are referred for. It may be the way forward for Amex to encourage people to hold on to their Plats for longer.

  • Polly says:

    Tom..can’t open it..how low are they planning to drop the fee? That would be amazing. But then how will they continue to afford our nice referral and spend bonus ?

    • John says:

      It doesnt’ work for me, but the way to read the FT is just to paste every headline you want to read into google and click the link from google.

      (You may need to disable certain privacy extensions in your browser, or at least enable http referrers if you turned them off.)

  • Samuel says:

    I tried collecting with Miles&More but the effort is too big for what you can get out of it: the miles expire, you earn little (I was flying only shorthaul and that earned flatrate miles) so I never got to something meaningful in terms of miles or status. Revenuebased, it seems completely impossible if you do not fly C or F. I hope BA keeps the old system.

    • czechoslovakia says:

      Well, the 3 EU biz returns I booked before midnight last night each earned 3750 M Miles (FTL). Had I done it this morning, after checking, LH site says only 1320 M Miles for the same booking. Problem is, P class has been “enhanced” the most, it seems. However, all is not lost. Will just have to book via United`s site instead in future….
      Unless you`re doing 35 segments a year and got a LH group Credit card, no fun to be had here.

  • Steve J says:

    “Ba’s upcoming Avios revamp” ????? Please explain.

    • Rob says:

      There is a proposal before the BA board this month, I believe, to go revenue based. This will impact both sides but it isn’t clear how the redeeming side will work. I am guessing it will be more AA style where you have a base Avios cost and a higher – but more widely available – price with better availability. Latter may not count for 241s or be available to other oneworld airlines.

      • BlueHorizonUK says:

        So I was right in my interpretation of what the presentation was and wasn’t actually about the merging of all the platforms into one.

  • ankomonkey says:

    Completely OT (sorry): Going to Bangkok later this year and want to visit a floating market. Does anyone have any recommendations or ones to avoid? I hear the “best” one is essentially a big tourist scam with massively inflated prices if you want to get close to the market.

    • jtz says:

      Go early if you are going. Avoid being scammed by taxi drivers who will charge around 200THB to take you there but then you are forced to pay 200THB for the experience which is usually just souvenir sellers along the river.
      I’d also say watch out for the road signs the main markets are clearly labelled and make sure the driver is actually taking you there.

      I would recommend amphawa, but lots of research to get a trustworthy driver to take you there. One way to know is remember to see the authentic experience you will need to get there really early so if a driver tells you 9am or after that’s too late, he’s probably taking you somewhere where he can pocket a high commission

  • Tom1 says:

    O/T Dubai hotel municipality fees – seems to be 10% – as well as VAT at 5% – how is the base clue calculated for redemptions?
    Is this like the Vegas (and spreading) resort fees?

    • Tom1 says:

      * clue = cost

    • Rob says:

      10% of nil is nil. All I ever pay on redemptions in Dubai is the Dhs 20 or so per day hotel tax.

      • Tom1 says:

        Thanks. That’s what I expected. But that’s not what’s appearing on my bill currently. Will challenge thanks.

  • Hanna says:

    Considering the fact that shorthaul European flights on Star A. netted me 125 miles per sector, I don’t think new system can be worse for non status passenger. Airfare + YQ on my last cheap ticket from Heathrow was 66.4 GBP so around 74 euro x4 = 296 miles. Still nothing, but a bit better nothing.

    I guess, depending on earning benefits, we can still choose on which ticket numbers to book and get more miles.

    • Rob says:

      Was that £66.40 net or gross? Landing charges are £19 and APD is £16 (?!) so you are looking at roughly £30 x 4 which is 120 miles. Admittedly not much difference but you are not better off.

    • Pangolin says:

      You can definitely be worse off, especially when most of the charge is airport tax, like it is on some Polish connections. Fortunately, if you book through LOT rather than Lufty they still use the old mileage system.

      • Hanna says:

        That was LHR_WAW, gross £98, net as above. I checked receipt before posting.

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