The 5 (+1) best ways to use your Miles&More miles
The Miles&More loyalty program allows you to accumulate points from all flights made with Lufthansa Group airlines [...]
Star Alliance
The Miles&More loyalty program allows you to Accumulate points from all flights made with Lufthansa group airlines and all those made on Star Alliance carriers. When it comes to choosing a program where you can earn miles. my advice is to opt for a card that easily allows you to renew points without losing them. I am a big fan, and a member of Singapore Airlines' Krisflyer program, but unfortunately this program makes the points expire after 36 months.
In this article:
On the contrary Lufthansa renews validity of points to status holders and to all the owners Of the Gold Miles&More Mastercard just make one transaction per month to renew the validity of the points. You can apply for the card for free for the first six months and also get a welcome bonus of 6,000 M&M miles.
More and more users are turning to this program as a piggy bank where to converge flights, bonuses from various activities and points accumulated using the M&M credit card. So here are what are the "sweet spots" to make the best use of them.
Lufthansa's first class
If you have enough points and want to take a big splurge this is the absolute jackpot. You do not need to have any status, but simply by using M&M points you can have access to the full inventory of all available places, without any limitations. In contrast, seats bookable by partner programs such as United or Singapore are made available only one week before the flight.
You can choose to flying on 747/8, sitting in front of the pilots, or in the upper deck of the A380 or if you are lucky fish out the brand new Allegris cabin that will be installed on the entire new fleet.
Le mileage Bargain
Every first of the month, offers come out that discount 50% award tickets. This means that with 30k points you can detach an award ticket in economy to fly to the US, with a little more you can fly in premium economy to Asia, and with 55k miles you can book a round trip from Italy to the US and beyond.
First class on ANA's flying turtle
All Nippon Airways has 3 Airbus A380s and uses them only on one route: Tokyo/Honolulu. Hawaii is one of the top vacation destinations for the Japanese, so Japan's largest airline uses the world's largest aircraft only on this route.
A first class ticket costs 65k miles and just over €220 Of taxes and surcharges. A great way to use M&M miles, wanting even business class at an even lower cost of only 35k points plus tax.
If you want, for the same price, you can also fly from Hawaii to South Korea with Asiana, of course it is not the flying turtle, but it is still a great price for time travel.
With LOT, award tickets have very few fees
One of the problems with award tickets are the fees and surcharges that companies ask the passenger to pay; there are few in Europe that charge few surcharges, and among them is LOT.
The Polish airline is not owned by Lufthansa, but it uses M&M as a loyalty program so it is possible to take award tickets using the same miles. For example you can fly from Italy to the U.S. in premium economy at 52k M&M or 71k in business with only 50€ tax.
Flying coast to coast in North America
The beauty of being able to take advantage of Star Alliance partners is that you can book not only carriers from the Lufthansa group, but from the entire alliance. One example is the ability to fly from one coast to another in North America.
For example, with Air Canada it is possible to fly from the East Coast to Vancouver. The main advantage of these planes is that their business class has fully reclining seats, and is nothing like European business class. A nice way to invest 20k M&M in addition to about 50€ in taxes.
If, on the other hand, we are in the United States with 15k M&M and 6$ tax United takes you everywhere. From New York to Miami, or Boston to Las Vegas, the cost is always that.
Other "random" ideas
Of course you have to have a tiny bit of imagination in looking for routes, but satisfaction comes easily. For example, with only 35k M&M you get to Central Africa., a real bargain especially taking advantage of Ethiopian and its new long-haul fleet.
If we're in the U.S. and we want to pop over to Panama, 30k M&Ms are enough. to fly business class and if you want, from here with the same amount you can fly to any destination reached by Copa in South America.
There would be many other examples of how to best invest the miles of Lufthansa and all the group companies. Have you found other sweet spots? write them in the comments.
