txviking

I have a DEN-MUC-OSL; return OSL-FRA-MIA itinerary on Lufthansa in August. I don't frequently fly with Lufthansa and so I'm not a member of Miles & More; however, this itinerary worked out the best for me this time around.

I live in Florida, mostly fly Delta domestically, and my most frequent international trips are to my native Norway. Most of the time I fly Norwegian FLL-OSL for this, but this time I needed to leave from Denver.

Is there any point in signing up for Lufthansa's Miles & More for these two flights? Are there other choices that would work better for earning credit towards flights from PBI/FLL/MIA to Europe? Or is it not worth bothering?

Christefan

M&M is useless unless you plan on flying more *A in the future. Similar to UA's program miles will expire at some point... I also live in Florida, and I put all of my *A on UA even when flying LH.

airoli

You don't say so but I assume that you booked in Economy class, and probably in one of the cheapest fare classes. If so, this trip alone will earn you very few miles.

txviking

Good assumption. And yeah, I know this trip alone won't get me anywhere in terms of miles, which was why I was looking at whether someone else's program made more sense.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the only one that is compatible is United's. I've closed my FF account with them and refuse to fly them anymore. (Redeemed my last remaining miles with them on Thai Airways.)

Thanks for the info.

Mwenenzi

You do not have to fly UA to be a member of the UA ffp.
Having a Star Alliance ffp makes sense for many USA people, even if to collect occasional Star Alliance ff miles, They may later expire, but may be of use. Better than nothing.

What fare booking class? www.wheretocredit.com/lh
And
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...post-here.html

txviking

It's apparently K class. And yeah, I'm aware I can be a member of UA's FFP without flying them, but they require you to agree to their terms and conditions to do that. After getting burned by them in the past, I'm not willing to do that – in fact, I explicitly called them and had them cancel my membership when they asked me to agree to updated T&Cs in order to log in.

That in itself was no big loss, I had 121 FF miles left when I did that. I do recognize that I lose some flexibility in booking partner airline trips with Chase UR points (which are transferable to United.) I'll be the first to admit it's a quixotic quest, but I firmly believe companies like United will continue to treat customers like dirt until it actually COSTS them customers. In short, I'm willing to lose some flexibility here just to uphold my principles.

As for mitigation, I thought I had a workaround by signing up for a Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer account. I haven't figured out how to book award travel on Singapore yet (their search engine doesn't seem to offer flights from other Star Alliance members.) But they do allow transfers from Chase, so perhaps the best strategy is to stash the Lufthansa miles into my KrisFlyer account and supplement with Chase UR points the next time I feel like vacationing in Asia.

Thanks for the help, and in particular for your links!

Boali

If you are flying K class, it seems the most you will get is 30% with All Nippon Airways and 25% with Miles and More and SAS FFP's. I am not sure you will receive any miles flying with LH in K class on Singapore Krisflyer program.

Christefan

Check out Turkish Airlines FF program. They are a full *A member, but nobody likes them because they are state sponsored and offer great service at reasonable fares. Last year I flew 4 RT from MIA to Europe in their C+ cabin. So you could consider them for your next European trip even though going to Northern Europe is a 3 hour detour but at least you can store your miles. They also have a status match program in case you have status with Delta....

Nick Hermann

K class wont earn any on united, wanted to do that with my last trip JFK-FRA-STR because I fly united domestically and LH to germany,

Grog

I would say it's not worth bothering. Even if you collected miles here and there, they'll surely expire and, in the end, you've only punished the businesses who bought the miles from LH Miles and More, in that you've driven their costs up.

tgj1974

If you plan more flights on star alliance, alternative is LH membership and a credit card, which means they wont expire.

Grog

But this doesn't address if it's worth it.

When and if it comes time to redeem for a flight, the OP will most likely be disappointed if not outraged at the true cost of a LH award flight with fees and taxes or on availability.

Unless the OP is very well informed and invests money (including money to maintain the credit card), time and effort in the redemption effort AND is blessed with favorable LH redemption pricing/fees in the future (unlikely), the OP will be setting himself/herself up for future bitterness.

swiss_global

LH flights in fare class K don't earn anything on M&S. And they also don't earn on AV Lifemiles and CM Connectmiles. Both are otherwise very decent *A programs, right on your doorsteps from a Florida perspective.

txviking

Carrier credit cards with annual fees generally only make sense on carriers you fly frequently. For me, that's Delta, due to the convenience of PBI->ATL->Anywhere routing. LH won my business this time because they had the most convenient flight option, but that's a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence.

I had not considered what some people mentioned abroad that KrisFlyer, SAS et al may credit from a small fraction of the miles to none at all. That puts this squarely in the category of not worth the trouble.