Miles & More ends flexible flight redemptions as it goes revenue based
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Lufthansa’s Miles & More programme effectively signalled the end of changeable and refundable redemption flights today – at least on its own aircraft – as it announced a move to a full revenue based model.
It even decided to annoy elite members by removing their status benefits such as free seat selection and free checked bags on the cheapest redemptions.
Impressively, Lufthansa chose to dress this up as great news for members – ‘Look forward to flexible mileage amounts and a greater choice of fares with Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City and SWISS’.
The only upside is that it cannot move partner airline redemptions onto a revenue based model. It has, however, substantially increased the cost of longer distance partner redemptions in an attempt to close the price gap with Lufthansa Group airlines.
(Lufthansa even admits this – its website says ‘You may need significantly more miles for longer routes, such as flights to South East Asia.’)
What’s bizarre, however, is this.
Whilst Lufthansa has moved to revenue based redemptions, it is still restricting the seats you can book with miles to the usual small bucket.
I mean …. what?! You are paying the same price as a cash ticket (based on a still unknown ‘cents per mile’ conversion rate) but the airline is not willing to sell you any seat at that price?
How will the new Miles & More system work?
It will be exactly the same as booking a cash ticket.
There will be FOUR types of reward ticket per cabin for long haul flights – ‘Light’, ‘Basic’, ‘Basic Plus’ and ‘Flex’.
- ‘Light’ will not include baggage, seat reservations or any ability to cancel or change your ticket. The mileage cost will be based on the cost of a non-refundable ticket for that flight. Elite members of Miles & More will NOT receive any of these items for free.
- ‘Basic’ and ‘Basic Plus’ will include some elements of the above – it is not clear what
- ‘Flex’ will include all of the above and will be based on the cost of a flexible ticket for that flight. To all intents and purposes, no-one will book these because the cost will be extortionate.
This effectively marks the end of Lufthansa reward flights being cancellable or changeable unless you are willing to pay a substantial premium.
Oddly, whilst the mileage required will be based on the cost of a cash ticket, you will still need to pay taxes and charges separately. You’re effectively paying them twice! The existing option to use more miles to cover the taxes and charges will be removed.
It isn’t clear if one way long haul redemptions will still be possible, because Lufthansa – like almost all airlines – only sells fully flexible one way long haul cash tickets. These would be obscenely expensive to book as a dynamically priced award.
There are multiple questions here which Lufthansa isn’t answering. For example, cash tickets from the UK, with a connection in Germany, are far cheaper than buying the same ticket non-stop from Germany. Does this mean UK residents will be able to book reward seats for far fewer miles than German residents?
What will partner award flights cost?
The new reward chart for partner flights is here (PDF).
There are still some good deals here, ironically. UK to the Middle East, for example, would be 75,000 miles return in business class, which is far lower than what you’d pay for an Avios booking.
The problem, of course, is how you get there without flying on Lufthansa, SWISS or Austrian where revenue based pricing will apply. Turkish Airlines is going to get a lot of attention from Miles & More members, I feel.
What will the value per mile be?
We have no idea what ‘Eurocents per mile’ value will be used. If it’s 1 Eurocent per mile then you are looking at up to 1 million miles for a ‘Flex’ long haul redemption in Business Class.
The only thing holding Miles & More back is the partner award chart. If you can fly Turkish Airlines to Dubai in business class for 75,000 miles return via Istanbul, it would be crazy to ask for 250,000 miles return, based on a €2,500 cash fare, for the same trip on Lufthansa or SWISS.
(An cherry-picked example given to the German media had Dubai priced at roughly 90,000 miles return from Frankfurt on a date in October.)
I suspect we’ll be looking at something closer to 2 Eurocents per mile. Assuming that redemption flights on Lufthansa Group carriers end up being cheaper for UK residents than German, Swiss or Austrian residents (because cash tickets are), there may still be some deals to be had during cash sales.
2 Eurocents per mile would also explain why redemption availability is remaining capped. Lufthansa’s book value per mile will be far less than this. Its balance sheet liability would increase massively if you could get 2 Eurocents per mile off any cash ticket. The accountants will have told them that by restricting reward seats to flights which won’t be full, Lufthansa can continue to argue that the seats booked have no value.
Conclusion
If you thought that Virgin Atlantic’s dynamic pricing model was crazy, at least for premium cabin flights, Lufthansa has taken it to a different level.
Redemptions will be DIRECTLY based on the cash cost of a ticket – but redemption seats are still artificially restricted to a handful per flight, if at all.
The miles cost is directly linked to the cash cost – but you still need to pay taxes and charges on top!
These changes kick in for bookings made from 3rd June.
If you have any Miles & More miles (and I have 260,000 so I have skin in this game) I strongly suggest you book before that date, especially if you want to fly in a premium cabin and want the ability to cancel or change your booking.
You can find out more about the changes on the Lufthansa website here.
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How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)
None of the Star Alliance airlines currently have a UK credit card.
There is, however, still a way to earn Star Alliance miles from a UK credit card.
The route is via Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty points convert to over 40 airlines at the rate of 3:1.
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