Lufthansa has announced a Miles & More devaluation in May

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• Charlieface says:

  29 Mar29 March 07:11

  Please everyone remember that under Section 75 credit card providers have the same liability as the merchant, ergo you can claim for rebooking via EC261 not just a refund.

• James Ardron says:

  29 Mar29 March 07:12

  What are miles and more like for European upgrades please was thinking of using some for London to Berlin as don’t have enough for long haul.

  • David says:

    29 Mar29 March 07:35

    Only a few economy fare buckets are upgradeable. I think an upgrade within Europe is 10k M&M, if you can upgrade. Availability is limited too though, even if you are in the right fare bucket.

    So in short, not great!

  • RussellH says:

    29 Mar29 March 09:02

    Do not forget that Miles + More regularly has heavily discounted economy fares. Currently available from the UK to most of Poland, or to Zagreb, for example, for 15 000 miles.
    Secondly, last minute (less than 15 days before departure) prices are usually half price too.
    And while there is no RFS, you can pay the Taxes and Fees with miles on Intra-Europe flights.
    M+M is not as bad as Rob likes to paint them, IMHO.
    Their cash based awards system, though, is hopeless.
    We got around 4x as many miles on our Lufthansa flights to Hong Kong over Chinese New Year by crediting to United instead – thanks again to whoever it was here for the tip – which means we have enough miles to be able to use for something. Crediting to M+M would have given us just over 6K miles.

• duncan says:

  29 Mar29 March 07:52

  O/T
  My wife has what looks like be a too good to be true offer on her new Marriot Bonvoy account.
  Exclusively for you “1 Free Night Award after your first stay* and another Free Night Award after your second stay”
  Simply put, have two separate one night stays (will cost £50 each night at our local hotel) and get two reward certs of 35,000 points each.
  Does anyone else have this, have I missunderstood?

  • Lee says:

    29 Mar29 March 07:56

    Yes, common if that’s her new account.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:47

    Is there any limit on the category they can be used on?

  • Rob says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:57

    They do run offers like this sometimes. Only issue is whether you can use them at a 35k property before they expire. Almost certainly worth doing though.

  • Grant says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:49

    We have the same offer on one of our accounts and I was planning on doing the same thing.

    Can the free night vouchers be combined with points stays? For example, 2 x free night vouchers plus 70,000 points earned from SPG spend = 4 nights at Cat 5 property?

    Any recommendations for Cat 5 properties in european destinations with decent family rooms?

• Big Dave says:

  29 Mar29 March 07:53

  OT: I paid for something online with my amex and the website crashed but the charge went through.
  I ordered again a few days later but I paid with another card. I raised the issue with amex they investigated and closed the case as they received enough evidence from the payment processor that the charge went through (yeah I know it it did thats why i raised the enquiry because I was charged erroneaously) so no refund. It was only for £20 – and I raised the inquiry from amex after asking the retailed for a refund and being promised one and after two weeks nothing happened so I contacted amex. Not sure what to do next.

  • marcw says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:16

    Why didn’t you contact the seller?

    • Big Dave says:

      29 Mar29 March 08:24

      i did – i mention that I contacted amex after requesting from the the vendor and waiting for a refund for over two weeks after being promised a refund

  • Evan says:

    29 Mar29 March 09:55

    What so you bought the same thing twice – believing you hadn’t bought whatever it was the first time?

    • john says:

      29 Mar29 March 10:13

      Sounds like the charge went through but the order didn’t.

    • Big Dave says:

      1 Apr1 April 07:50

      Yes but used a different card second time…. :/

  • the_real_a says:

    29 Mar29 March 15:15

    Open a complaint with AMEX but provide both the orders. Your claim is for goods not received on the order that didn’t go through. You can also have the FCA/Ombudsman “help” you raise a complaint by opening a claim against BOTH credit card providers and have the FCA work out which order failed. No need to wait for deadlock. I needed to do this in similar circumstances, but the value was higher. I am cantankerous and out of principle would persue this.

    • Big Dave says:

      1 Apr1 April 07:51

      thanks – i think this is my only option right now – cantankerous and out of principle are in my DNA…!

• Spurs Debs says:

  29 Mar29 March 08:08

  I did online order for Hacket on Tuesday morning arrived Wednesday morning, today 8625 points posted to my amex card. Can’t fault that service.

  • Curious says:

    29 Mar29 March 18:36

    when are you returning it?

• Alex Sm says:

  29 Mar29 March 08:11

  Do they (M&M) still have a 50% miles rebate if you book last minute (2 weeks before the trip) and an option to pay taxes with miles? I used both in the past and these made it v attractive!

  • marcw says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:18

    Yes, they still do that and you can still pay fees with miles. They also have now a new option for non-stop long-haul discounted redemptions (from FRA, MUC, VIE and ZRH) – there’s a list somewhere (only for economy though). Regardless, surcharges are so high that I don’t really see a point in Miles & More, except for some juicy partner redemptions.

  • Rob says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:56

    Yes, that’s still there but only on direct flights, which limits your options from the UK to basically Zurich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Munich, Warsaw or Vienna. Eurowings is not included (I think).

    • marcw says:

      29 Mar29 March 09:41

      The bizarre thing is that M&M redemptions on Germanwings are *fuel surcharges free. In fact, you only pay taxes, at least on short haul.

• Alex Sm says:

  29 Mar29 March 08:14

  Didn’t Icelandair acquire WOW some time ago?

  • Charlieface says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:42

    It fell through in the last few days which is why they went bust.

• ConfusedofGlos says:

  29 Mar29 March 08:48

  Quite off topic, but hoping the brainstrust here can help. My wife has a work trip to the USA next week with Air Canada. I can’t see us being likely to fly with them anytime soon so is it worth crediting the flight to Miles & More or something else like KrisFlyer? TIA

  • Rob says:

    29 Mar29 March 08:52

    Miles & More would let you cash out a small amount (7,500) for Heathrow shopping vouchers. Topping up possible via Marriott, or (worse) Amex to Marriott to M&M. Krisflyer is 1:1 from Amex so easier to top up, but no ‘small’ redemptions so a decent chance they’d expire before you could use them.

    I THINK (check) that Air Canada is still a points.com transfer partner, so (subject to thresholds) you could use the points.com platform to move Aeroplan points to IHG Rewards Club or similar at a bad rate.

    • Alex Sm says:

      29 Mar29 March 10:19

      I managed to cash out 7,400 M&M miles earlier for Amazon vouchers. I was 25 miles short of 7,500 but it turned out that only needed 7,400 (2×3,700)! Converted into 2×10 vouchers and decided to forget about M&M – Miles&Bonus from A3 and Eurobonus from SK are so much better!

  • marcw says:

    29 Mar29 March 09:30

    I’d use United Mileage Plus. Miles don’t expire as long as there is some activity every year (could be 18 months?). Nowadays it’s easy to maintain activity with United Mileage Plus with MileLife App.

    • RussellH says:

      29 Mar29 March 10:37

      e-Rewards transfer or Marriott transfer are other options for maintaining validity.

  • ConfusedofGlos says:

    29 Mar29 March 11:24

    Thanks everyone. On the basis of trying to build up some points rather transfer out, seems either United or SAS may be best (the latter seeming to get closest to earning Star Alliance silver status, the former easiest to keep the miles “alive”). Does a potential flight with EVA Air later in the year change anything?

    • marcw says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:32

      Status is only useful if you fly enough. If you don’t fly enough with StarAlliance, there’s no point in seeking status: you will get more value out of redemptions. (BTW Star Alliance Silver doesn’t get you anything interesting, priority check in and priority boarding (I think) – you may get the odd upgrade to Economy Plus/extra on United, but that’s about it). I’m not familiar with SAS EuroBonus, but with United Mileage Plus you 5.000 miles is good enough for redemptions in Japan (I know that with Avios you also get cheap redemption in Japan, but the advantage of Mileage Plus is that redemptions include connections) and some domestic routes in the US. Don’t bother in Europe, BA and RFS is the way forward. The good thing with United Mileage Plus, redemptions are taxes only (no silly fuel surcharges, even on Lufthansa!)

      • RussellH says:

        29 Mar29 March 11:41

        Re StarAlliance in Europe: Remember that you can fly out of EDI, MAN, BHX and GLA to elsewhere in Europe. No need to trek south.

      • ConfusedofGlos says:

        29 Mar29 March 12:02

        Very helpful. Thank you. Enjoying United’s menu of bizarre security questions of which you have to select five!

      • marcw says:

        29 Mar29 March 12:46

        I know! So ridiculous! And every time you log in from a different PC and/or browser, you have to answer some of them. Write the answers down somewhere…

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