Lufthansa launches a new UK Miles & More charge card – partly as a Diners Club (Part 1)

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

• Roger says:

  3 Oct3 October 05:38

  Any chance of other airlines (EK, AA, UA) following suit and issue new UK cards following MBNA exit?

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:21

    I was with the consultant Emirates is paying to look into UK options last week and he was not hopeful.

• Bill says:

  3 Oct3 October 05:59

  Maybe Diners Club are making a push for UK? Offices next to MBNA, new company scheme launched – already Diners Club widely accepted in Switzerland – maybe there will be a small business Diners Club offer this November?!!!

• Steve says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:13

  Or perhaps if we leave the EU quickly the interchange cap can be scrapped and we can go back to how it used to be with Amex 🙂

  • Optimus Prime says:

    3 Oct3 October 06:21

    Such cap was a British idea so you’d better get used to it 🙂

    • Mark2 says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:18

      Maybe, but that does not mean that it cannot be changed.

  • Mike says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:25

    I am still not really clear what will happen with the interchange cap after BREXIT – are details written down anywhere ?

    • Genghis says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:43

      Tbf I think reversing interchange caps is the least of HMG’s worries.

  • Alex W says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:34

    By default all EU law will become UK law. The UK asked for the cap to “protect” consumers. They are not going to get this rule changed. There are too many other issues to deal with such as… what happens when we leave EASA, where do we get enough nurses from, who is going to pick the fruit and veg, can we import enough medicine etc…

    • Chris says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:54

      Yes, but Sovereignty!

      • Alex W says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:29

        Don’t forget blue passports!

    • Anna says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:58

      Funny, we had nurses and fruit pickers before we joined the EU! It would be good to see young British people doing these jobs, either as careers (nursing) or valuable work experience before moving on to something else (fruit picking etc). What do students do in the holidays these days? I used to spend the lengthy university holidays working in pubs and offices to supplement my grant (giving away my age there!). Given that many more young people are in higher education now, this workforce must still be at large.

      • Marcw says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:10

        Ok! Go to the farms and check how many brits work there! You will be surprised. Have you visited any Pret or Eat, or any other chain/restaurant/hotel? At least in London, the majority are EU citizens. The past is the past, now what matters is the present and future.

      • Alan says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:22

        Most of the overseas nurses in our local hospitals are from outside the EU (mainly Asia).

      • Shoestring says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:30

        Yep I was on a local farm before the summer (they run a paintball & laser tag arm as a sideline) – 2000 acres mixed dairy and arable. I got talking with the owner as we had to wait about an hour for the rest of the students to show up – it was just down the road for us but they all came in a double decker!)

        Anyway, whilst his permanent staff numbers were not high year round (family plus another couple of farm labourers), they peaked at about 20. ALL the temporary ones were East European, and very happy was Mr Farmer with their work ethic!

      • Jumble Tales says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:46

        @Anna : Very well said.

        @Rob : I’ve always wanted a Diners Card so am keen to apply. I think some people still use the Affiniture business version for fuel etc.
        Is there an up-to-date list of where it is accepted? I’m sure they used to claim DC was accepted in more places worldwide than Amex, but is it expensive to use overseas?

        It will be interesting to work out their acceptance criteria being charge/prepaid cards, given recent HfP readers’ experiences applying for the new Virgin cards.

      • Callum says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:07

        Have you noticed how it’s never “I can’t wait to get stuck in and help out on farms or nursing homes”, it’s always “insert group X will do it”.

        Newsflash – they probably won’t… If they aren’t currently doing it, why would they step up and do it after Brexit? I guess we’ll have to take a leaf out of Australia’s book and get them in on Working Holiday Visas.

      • Iain says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:13

        @shoestring, and very happy with the low wages he needs to pay them no doubt! I also wonder if the Eastern European economies they leave behind would prefer to benefit from their work ethic and innovation?

      • pauldb says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:23

        These are symptoms of our ageing population. We have near-record low unemployment and the dependency ratio (workers:pensioners) is going from 3.5 to 2.5 over the next 20 years. Migration will soften that a little (maybe technology will save us) and thereby have far more impact on our standards of living, compared to the silly arguments about crowded housing and schools which are just down to stupid planning/budgeting.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:47

        Disclaimer – this post has nothing to do with miles and points, but is relevant to this thread!

        Brain drain – skilled migration has gone into the UK from Asia because the pay is much better than they get at ‘home’. In the same way, it’s leaving the UK, because we get paid a lot more in Australia, etc.. Inward migration from Asia will not change, they’re not from the EU, oddly enough.

        Unskilled labour from Eastern Europe is what will take the hit, and whether the UK “yoof of today” will pick up the slack remains to be seem. This is a massive generalisation here, and not meant in any way to cause offence, I’m well aware that there’s plenty of skilled migration from the EU-zone in general, but we don’t see the unskilled migration from outside the EU, because it doesn’t exist.

        If the UK’s own population won’t do the work, then why not let immigrants do it, I suspect some form of WHV might popup. Australia’s model is always banded about as a shining example in the UK, trust me life isn’t perfect here either, and surprise surprise, immigrants are to blame (although as a white, English speaking person, my category don’t seem to count when it comes to blaming immigrants).

      • Chuckstar says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:02

        OMG .. Brexit tosh, this is hilarious, it’s 2018, no going back to the 60’s Anna…

      • john says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:26

        I suspect a large number may end up with a right to remain anyway so whilst some may leave and others might not come, it won’t be a mass exodus..

        • Rob says:

          3 Oct3 October 11:38

          They are processing these VERY quickly now, by the way. My Mrs just got permanent residency, in case it comes in handy. The stupid old form where you had to list where you were on every single day for the last 6 years has gone. It is now a very short form and, if you have five years of P60s, you’re sorted. She got her card within 3 weeks of completing the form.

          There is still one massive f*** up though, assuming you are applying for a passport after getting permanent residency. You have to pass the ‘Life In The UK’ test which is VERY tricky to get the residency card. Then, once you’ve passed this difficult exam – which is in English – you are forced to attend a separate 10 minute session on another day in another place to prove you can speak English …..

      • Anna says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:48

        Chuckstar, I am talking about the lates 80s, early 90s, clearly you have not experienced what I am referring to.

      • Evan says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:50

        Oh well done Anna you have diverted the impending crisis. GAP year students will solve the problem. Because they will do all of the jobs which they haven’t wanted to do before now won’t they. Maybe they will as the economy collapses. Who knows? And yes let’s force them to be nurses as well and pay them a pittance which they can then use to pay off their student debt – because well in pre EU days nurses had to do a degree and not get into debt whilst training…Oh hold on..

      • Optimus Prime says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:58

        EU citizens who want to stay here better apply for full citizenship. This government has already backtracked on dozens of things, how can you be sure this won’t be added in to the list?

        ‘Life in the UK test’ makes sense on some topics – get to know some UK law, history, etc. But some questions are f*cking ridiculous and useless ilke who opened the first curry house or who’s the british sportman with most gold medals?

        • Rob says:

          3 Oct3 October 13:12

          Oh yes, it’s an astonishing load of rubbish, in general. There are LOADS of things that could be asked which would actually be useful for someone living here, but the actual questions are a joke. Even worse, they are very specific.

          If the question was ‘Which year did the first curry house open in Britain?’, the options would be 1810, 1811, 1812 and 1813. Having learnt the source book well enough to know that it was somewhere in the 1810’s is not good enough.

      • the_real_a says:

        3 Oct3 October 12:43

        Up here in the North, the wages for factory work have dropped by 50% since the EU migrants arrived. Back in the late 90`s my mates were earning £16-18p/h which was about 4x the “minimum” wage at the time. Of course these jobs are now done by EU low skill people earning £8p/h.

        There were lots of people who had ambition, but no qualifications who were more than willing to vastly improve their standing in life by doing some of the unpleasant jobs. This route has simply closed for today’s young people.

      • Shoestring says:

        3 Oct3 October 14:56

        There were a couple of bits that caught us out on my wife’s citizenship application a couple of years ago. You had to have private health insurance (not be a burden on the NHS), now how many migrants will think about that when they could use an EHIC card then qualify for free NHS treatment by working & paying NICs? Plus the way they calculate dates is cock-eyed – their site clearly said it’s 3 years’ residency requirement for spouses, on closer reading you realise it’s 5 years’ residency requirement same as non spouses; my wife had worked continuously in UK for over 7 years when we applied for the passport & they still turned her down on both those things (health ins & years residency). We had used the citizenship application checking service (provided as a paid service by the state) which cost about £80, and even our checker couldn’t believe my wife had got turned down. I won it on appeal but it is an appalling branch of the civil service. Just wonder if T May had anything to do with it, ie a blanket instruction to fail as many applications as possible. By contrast to the civil servants involved, passing the Life in the UK test was a breeze, just memorize everything.

    • jim says:

      3 Oct3 October 12:38

      The EU Nurses argument is largely a myth slyly interchanged by remoaners with “workers from over seas” Listen closely next time you here one banging on about it.

      Last time I looked I believe its about 4%!!!

      If you work in the NHS as I do, its clear to see.

      You will see far higher % of EU workers in the non clinical roles – which are very sort after jobs by British workers .

      • Bill says:

        3 Oct3 October 12:51

        My ability to retire abroad ….gone

        I guess I will have to remain in the UK and be a drain here

      • Evan says:

        3 Oct3 October 14:15

        So if these jobs are so sort after…why are the local applicants not getting them? Some kind of conspiracy? Or are the EU applicants stronger?

      • Jane says:

        3 Oct3 October 19:03

        Sought. Maybe the EU applicants understand the difference if two key words in a medical environment… And I voted to leave!

      • jim says:

        4 Oct4 October 16:37

        No, the EU applicants are not stronger but we are having a major drive to recruit more BME workers, especially in the Band 5 and above roles so this will have an effect.

        Jane – If you can’t beat the argument go for the poster eh Jane?

        “IF” or “OF” now that’s funny!

• pauldb says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:41

  I thought cards like the BA Amex didn’t get the cap exemption from being under 3% share because the BA logo on the card made them a “four party” scheme. Why would LH/DC be any different?

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:18

    Might not be – I am genuinely unsure about this.

• Georges says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:01

  Some will remember that in the 90’s before BA launched their Amex card, the only credit card you could use to earn BA miles was in fact Diners Club. But I think Rob is being a bit unfair by saying you should leave the card at home because it is not well accepted. In fact, it is widely accepted by airlines, trains, hotels and restaurants and quite a number of shopping establishments. If it wasn’t they simply wouldn’t be in business.

  • Mikeact says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:04

    You mean in the 80’s, when I had one, but sadly they lost there way years ago.

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:13

    But why carry it around when you have a Mastercard with identical benefits?!

    • RakishDriver says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:22

      Pre-auth issues at hotels and car rental?
      Most of the big players are still accepting diners?
      And the novelty of having a diners club in your wallet in 2018….who would have thought !

    • David says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:23

      For the novelty value! I’m looking forward to saying “Do you accept … Diners Club?!”

      One to pull out on date nights…

    • Georges says:

      3 Oct3 October 11:20

      Well because as many people think and as you pointed out, the strange transactional structure on the MC may often lead to declined transactions. This probably won’t be the case when using the DC card. I think you may be surprised at how many people will actually use DC, there is a certain prestige to it and may offer other benefits such as a long interest free period before you have to pay for your purchases. Everyone is wondering about this business model and how they will make (or lose) money on the MC. I think they’re hoping that they will make more from the DC card than they will lose with the MC. I for one really want this to work for Lufthansa because I don’t want to see it go down the tubes in 1 or 2 years time. So I will carry both cards and will try to use DC wherever possible and I would encourage anyone who values M&M more than any other program to do the same.

      • John says:

        3 Oct3 October 12:51

        Don’t know about prestige or novelty, but the interest-free period is roughly the same as every other credit card, which this is not!

      • Crafty says:

        3 Oct3 October 18:53

        Prestige? It’s an identically shaped piece of plastic to the others in your wallet. Christ.

      • mr dee says:

        3 Oct3 October 21:25

        I think the only people who will give the card any prestigious value will be the ones that accept it, which is likely to be low.

      • Callum says:

        3 Oct3 October 23:41

        Crafty – You’d be amazed how many people using this site care about the perceived prestige level of their payment cards (including the founder!).

        • Rob says:

          4 Oct4 October 08:46

          I don’t care. My Plat sits in the office desk and I occasionally pull it out to pay for a HFP purchase. Never carry it with me.

          I imagine Curve will upgrade my card to a metal one next month if I ask nicely. There will be a bit of novelty in waving that around for a few months.

          As you don’t hand over your card to pay any longer, and if using Apple Pay never even pull it out, any perceived snob vslue is pretty much dead. The upside is I can pay for things using a card with a female name on it and no-one notices ….

    • mr dee says:

      4 Oct4 October 16:28

      What female names are your favourite to use? haha

  • Mark2 says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:21

    I seem to remember that you could collect Air Miles from the outset (1988) with a NatWest card. I moved over from Barclaycard who had a bound volume of ‘gifts’ including air balloon flights.

  • Arthur says:

    3 Oct3 October 11:00

    In Switzerland, the same company that offers the Lufthansa DC/MC combo also offers British Airways Diners Club. So who knows? In fact, I suspect that this whole Lufthansa Diners Club deal is primarily aimed at the Swiss market and the British market is secondary afterthought – something along the lines of ‘DC- we’d like to have a crack at UK again’; Lufty ‘we don’t have anything in UK’ – so ‘let’s give it a go’ win-win. Also, Diner’s Club is more widely acepted in UK than Rob makes out. My [UK] local Sainsburys takes my Swiss Diner’s Club card – even though the DC symbol is not shown. There used to be a list of places DC was accepted in – I can’t track that down now. But the fact the cards have contactless on them now – that is new and something that DC resisted.

    • Anon says:

      3 Oct3 October 14:09

      BTW, in Poland LH offer a Diners Club card (as well as a card through a bank)
      But it’s a nightmare to get.

• Mikeact says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:02

  Amazing, Germany, the one country in the world that hated credit cards etc. And now, they’ve jumped into bed with Diners of all people. Even though it’s a charge card, I wish you luck trying to use it. (And you thought it was tough trying to use Amex in places !)

  • David says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:13

    They still do hate credit cards – I got some filthy looks for trying to use a MasterCard for a €27 lunch bill, even when they had the MasterCard sticker in the window! Apparently it was a €30 minimum for cards…

  • Roger1* says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:25

    I remember a couple of years ago in Hamburg at the big electronics store opposite the Hauptbahnhof, the ONLY card of mine that they accepted was AmEx – only high-rollers welcome? No idea whether they accepted DC.

    Oh, and Austria was always a DC-positive country. Remember those ‘welcome to Austria’ brochures sponsored by DC handed out at Vienna airport?

  • David says:

    3 Oct3 October 10:00

    “I’m sorry but we don’t take AMEX, it’s the only card we don’t take”

    I hand over Diners

    “And that’s the only other card we don’t take.”

    Had a Diners in 2010 for the lounge access (£50/year, unlimited use), but never spent a penny on it.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    3 Oct3 October 10:53

    On the subject of acceptance, in Australia anyway, I find it really strange that one of the largest pharmacy chains (Chemist Warehouse) doesn’t accept Amex, but does accept China Unionpay, a card I’ve never seen in real life!

    • Rob says:

      3 Oct3 October 11:21

      Very heavy acceptance of UnionPay in London amongst tourist-focused establishments.

      • Michael Jennings says:

        3 Oct3 October 12:34

        There is much wider acceptance of UnionPay in Australia (and the Asia-Pacific region in general) than in the UK, too. (The UK makes it worse by making it unnecessarily difficult for Chinese people to get tourist visas, too).

      • Andy says:

        3 Oct3 October 18:58

        Had read somewhere that Unionpay were trying to launch cards in the UK.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        4 Oct4 October 11:51

        Makes sense I guess, I wonder what the interchange is like with that though? Presumably less than Amex?

        On a related but unrelated note, I did get a survey from Westpac recently about potential products, including introduction of a companion UnionPay card, so maybe one will be available from them soon.

        They (Westpac, and so far) have got around the interchange reg’s put in place by the RBA by getting Amex to directly issue their companion card now, so you have two separate accounts, two limits, two applications, two sign up bonuses, so if they jump on the UnionPay bandwagon, I’ll join them.

        Whilst we’re on the subject, what about JCB cards? 😉

    • John says:

      3 Oct3 October 12:54

      5+ years ago I was at a pub in Ravenglass (Cumbria) and the landlady was chatting to me about her recently introduced acceptance of Unionpay, apparently lots of PRC tourists were starting to come in

      • RussellH says:

        3 Oct3 October 17:04

        I have not seen many Chinese in Ravenglass (about 25 miles from here) – perhaps they were engineers spying on Sellafield:-)
        The Central Lakes are full of oriental tourists – they always used to be Japanese, I understood (supposedly bonkers about Beatrix Potter) – but some may now be Chinese. I cannot tell the difference between Japanese and Cantonese or other Chinese langauges.

    • Callum says:

      3 Oct3 October 23:46

      I know I’m stating the obvious, but have you not noticed the number of Chinese tourists/students/immigrants in Australia? It makes perfect sense they’d accept Unionpay!

      • Mikeact says:

        4 Oct4 October 08:52

        And New Zealand, big time.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        4 Oct4 October 11:47

        Indeed, not saying it doesn’t make sense, however I’d have thought Amex would make more sense, but there you go!

  • RussellH says:

    3 Oct3 October 16:59

    Germany still hates credit cards, though to a lesser extent than before (Lidl now take Visa, anyway, according to my German bank).
    But Germany has nothing to do with this Diners/M/card tie up – at least as far as I know, as my German Bank (Deutsche Kredit Bank) issue LH credit cards (and Hilton cards too).
    The Swiss deal with Diners must be very different from that here, since, as I mentioned yesterday, they are giving double miles on Diners spend (1 Frank-1 mile on Diners) and they have a welcome offer at present of no first year fee.
    I have vaguely thought of applying for the Swiss package, but I doubt that they would think my Swiss income at just under CHF2000 per annum sufficient.
    🙂

    • Pete says:

      3 Oct3 October 19:08

      You need to be a resident of Switzerland or Leichtenstein too – it’s a deal aimed at the domestic market. For non-residents, something like the Swiss Miles and More card is available; such as here: https://www.premiumcards.ch

      • Mikeact says:

        4 Oct4 October 08:54

        Maybe Germany has nothing to do with it, but Lufthansa is pretty prominent on the front.

    • Bagoly says:

      4 Oct4 October 10:32

      And recently Aldi (Nord at least) starting taking Amex!

• paulm says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:57

  Having done a few recent Hilton stays I now have just under 15k of M&M. Any good ideas to use small amounts ?

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:08

    35k is a one way in Business to Dubai etc. Good deals in the monthly redemption sales.

    Worst case is a Heathrow Rewards transfer or part pay for a hotel room.

  • Roger1* says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:27

    … also (in the UK), various shopping vouchers such as Amazon, Tesco.

    • Stuart Carpenter says:

      3 Oct3 October 10:54

      How do you transfer them to vouchers?

      • Roger1* says:

        3 Oct3 October 14:56

        From a recent e-mail newsletter:

        https://milesandmore_uk.cadooz.com/frontend/cat/view.do;jsessionid=-HgbagOybl_t0lTlLytljKytkl-d_mJycFoi42Lf.w06?back=true

  • Tony says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:37

    I bought a one way Toronto Vancouver business class on AC 787 for 18K M&M + about CA$50. Cash price was over £1K so was an excellent use. That cleaned out my M&M account and I wont bother to collect any more. They are too hard to collect in my opinion and getting good value can be hard. You could also look at upgrades which I think can also be fairly good value for smaller quantities.

• Scottydogg says:

  3 Oct3 October 09:33

  OT
  This morning i booked 2 reward flights for September 22nd 2019 as this morning it opened up on BA and i got the last 2 reward flights 🙂
  I need to book the return flights , what it the best tactic ? Do i need to just go on again in a few days when the return opens up and hope to get the reward flights . I read something a while ago about phoning up but i can’t remember how this done ?
  Also , what time do the flights open up , is it midnight UK time ?

  • Genghis says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:39

    If not for really popular routes, CPT / SIN, book online. If on a 241 and you don’t have enough avios then you’d need to call (I just call the one for the status level I’m at). If you do, can book online and sort out in the morning. Flights released at 1am BST (midnight GMT).

    • Craig says:

      3 Oct3 October 10:41

      Just making sure I’ve got something right in my head, book outbound at T-355 using 241. Book return at T-355 1am using Avios then phone when the service desk opens to tidy everything up and refund half the Avios used for the return? I’ve now got to the point where I have enough Avios to do this.

      • Genghis says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:48

        Yes – and you might get lucky on the taxes (assuming you want it that way…)

      • Dave says:

        3 Oct3 October 15:11

        One thing to note if you do it this way is that BA will only refund half the avios, they won’t refund/change the taxes and your flights will be on separate bookings.

      • Genghis says:

        3 Oct3 October 15:17

        @Dave they will if you ask them to (i.e. if it’s to your benefit).

  • Shoestring says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:43

    Flights open up midnight GMT T-355, if it’s just reward flights (not 2-4-1) then easiest to do it online yourself, no need to phone.

    Currently 08.43 GMT.

    • Shoestring says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:44

      With 2-4-1s, I think people have been phoning Japan CS @ midnight GMT with good success?

  • Anna says:

    3 Oct3 October 11:52

    They seem to be loading up around 1.30 am at the moment, but remember the clocks will change at the end of the month which might be before you book your return.

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