Review: the Lufthansa Miles & More Global Traveller Diners Club and Mastercard

This is our review of the Lufthansa Miles & More Global Traveller UK payment cards.

It is part of our series of articles looking at the major UK loyalty credit and charge cards and discussing whether of not they are worth applying for. These posts are linked to the relevant sections of the ‘Credit Card Offers‘ area in the menu bar. Our other UK airline and hotel credit card reviews can be found here.

This article was updated on 1st April 2024, and all of the information is correct as of that date. Ignore the original publication date shown.

Key link: Lufthansa Miles & More Global Traveller charge cards application form

Key facts:  £79 annual fee

These are charge cards, not credit cards, and you must repay your balance in full at the end of each month.

About the Miles & More Global Traveller cards

The Lufthansa Miles & More cards – issued by Diners Club, now part of the US group Discover Financial Services – come as a double-pack of a Diners Club card and a Mastercard.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Lufthansa is issuing a Diners Club card, the card that time forgot!  It is very likely that you have never seen a Diners Club card in your life, yet alone used one.

Whilst I tend to refer to this card as ‘the Lufthansa card’, Miles & More is technically the loyalty programme for a number of airlines.  Some of these are airlines owned by Lufthansa Group (SWISS, Austrian, Eurowings, Brussels Airlines) and some are not (LOT, Croatia, Luxair).

Is there an annual fee on the Miles & More card?

Yes, £79 per year.

What is the sign-up bonus?

The sign-up offer is 5,000 Miles & More miles triggered with your first purchase.

Occasional promotions see the bonus increased to 10,000 miles.  The last bonus ended on 31st December 2019.

Any other benefits?

You can use your Diners Club card to enter 800 airport lounges across the world.  This is not a free benefit – your Diners Club card will be charged £15 for each visit.

Even more important than earning miles, in my view, is that having the card and using it at least once a month stops your Miles & More miles from expiring.

If you are a base level M&M member, your miles will expire three years after you earn them whether or not you have credited miles to your account in the meantime. This is a particularly mean and nasty expiry policy. British Airways, for example, simply requires that you credit 1 Avios to your account every three years to keep all your miles active.

Note that you need to have had the card for three months before your miles are protected.

How can you have a Mastercard charge card?

You can’t, technically.  In a supremely complicated move, your Miles & More Mastercard is actually a pre-paid Mastercard.  When you buy something with it, Diners Club instantaneously loads your pre-paid Mastercard a split second before the retailer sucks the money out.  The charge appears on your Diners Club statement.

Because the Mastercard element is technically a pre-paid card, you CANNOT use it to leave a deposit when you check into a hotel or hire a car.  You would have to hand over your Diners Club card or use another card entirely.

What do I earn per £1 spent on the Miles & More card?

You earn 1.25 miles per £1 spent on both the Diners Club card and the Mastercard.

This is at the high end of what you can earn on any miles credit card these days.  The only widely available card which is more generous is the Virgin Flying Club Reward+ credit card – click here – which has a higher earning rate of 1.5 points per £1 but also has a higher fee of £160.

Our review of the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard is here.

What is a Miles & More mile worth?

This is clearly a ‘finger in the air’ exercise. I would, however, flag some key pointers.

M&M miles are useless for short-haul.  Lufthansa taxes are so high that they are usually, amazingly, higher than the cost of a cash ticket. (This happens because LH massages the taxes figure on cash tickets on short-haul routes so that its fares match competitors. On redemption tickets, you are hit with the full whack.)  How does 35,000 miles plus £80 of taxes for an Economy ticket from London to Frankfurt sound?  Appalling, I imagine, given that BA only wants 8,000 – 9,000 miles and £35 taxes.

As with British Airways, long haul economy redemptions are also very poor value due to the high taxes imposed.

Long-haul premium cabin redemptions are more in line with BA’s taxes and the number of miles needed is often a bit lower, especially as children aged 2-11 get a 25% discount on their tickets.

The real benefit is availability, which in Business Class is often far better than British Airways, especially during UK school holidays. Lufthansa Senator (Gold) cardholders also get a 50% miles discount for a 2nd ticket on the same flight. This benefit can be used an unlimited number of times.

Lufthansa also has an excellent First Class product. The First Class Terminal / First Class Lounges in Frankfurt are amongst the best in the world, and include private car transfer to and from the steps of your plane.  Here is my 2017 review of the First Class Terminal and the Lufthansa First Class in-flight service.

Miles & More members get decent access to Lufthansa First Class redemptions – far better than Star Alliance partners. Note, though, that SWISS First Class redemptions are no longer available to anyone except Miles & More elite members.

Lufthansa runs monthly mileage sales which have some attractive bargains, albeit that the flights are non refundable.  Intra-Europe flights have been as low as 5,000 miles – although the high taxes still need to be paid.

I am happy to value Miles & More miles at my standard 1p valuation.  The best value is in Business Class redemptions.  First Class reward seats carry a disproportionate premium – although Lufthansa First Class is an exceptional experience – and economy rewards are pointless due to the taxes.

If you can redeem during the monthly ‘mileage sales’, you will receive an even better deal.  These cover a lot of destinations but you do need to travel during the following six weeks or so.

How does this compare to a cashback credit card?

My default comparison card is the John Lewis / Waitrose Mastercard which is free for life and offers 0.25% cashback in vouchers.  The representative APR is 18.9% variable.

The Miles & More Global Traveller cards are substantially more generous than this, although you are paying an annual fee.

The sign-up bonus of 5,000 miles is modest, given that the card carries an annual fee.  The bonus is worth less than the first year fee of £79.

The sheer number of points needed for a long-haul redemption in Business or First Class – the only redemptions worth bothering with because of the taxes – means that this card is of little long-term use if you do not fly with Star Alliance and collect the bulk of your miles that way. The only exception would be if you had substantial amounts of credit card spend.

Is Miles & More a good card to use when travelling?

No, as Diners Club and Mastercard add a 3% foreign exchange fee to every purchase.  You might want to get a separate free credit card to use abroad.

Unfortunately there are no travel rewards card without a foreign exchange fee.  One option is to get a free Curve Card – see this HfP article – and link it to a miles-earning Visa or Mastercard.

Another option is to get a free card from Currensea. Currensea is a simple but clever idea. You pay abroad with your Currensea Mastercard debit card. Currensea translates the cost to Sterling with just a 0.5% fee (83% less than this card charges) and withdraws the money from your bank account. You can find out more by clicking here. Currensea is free so there is no risk in giving it a try.

Other points to note

You need to apply a scarcity factor to Miles & More miles. They are not an American Express Membership Rewards partner and there are relatively few large-scale ways other than flying for a UK resident to earn miles.

Lufthansa does not even sell miles, so you can’t top up your account easily even if you are willing to pay.

One way of getting a slug of Miles & More miles cheaply is via the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. This offers a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which converts to 6,666 Miles & More miles.

You indirectly earn Miles & More miles via the Marriott Bonvoy American Express at the effective rate of 0.66 miles per £1, or 0.812 miles per £1 if you convert your Marriott Bonvoy points in 60,000 point chunks to get the 5,000 mile bonus.  Earning miles via credit card spend on the Marriott Bonvoy card will not stop your Miles & More miles from expiring.

Note, however, that transfers from Marriott Bonvoy to Miles & More are currently suspended. This is due to an on-going legal dispute in Germany.

Conclusion

I have the UK Miles & More Global Traveller card.  It protects my existing Miles & More balance from expiry (although I resent paying a £79 annual fee to do so) and I value the very high 1.25 miles per £1 earning rate.  It is important for me to have access to Star Alliance miles for those occasions when Avios and Virgin Flying Club miles are no use, such as over peak UK school holiday periods.  Luckily German school holiday dates rarely match those in the UK.

Oddly, if you are a loyal Miles & More flyer – which means you have status in the programme – you might not want to bother with this card long term.  Your miles won’t expire due to having status which means that you might not find the £79 annual fee offers value.

The on-going earnings rate is very strong.  1.25 miles per £1 is very good in the current market.  If you have a lot of card spend, potentially due to business expenses, you could do very nicely with this card.

The application form for the Lufthansa Miles & More Diners Club and Mastercard cards can be found here.

---

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 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:

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.

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.