I guess (but I don't know, 'cause I never really checked) that foreign airlines' offerings in the UK will suffer from similar problems. There's only so many credit card brands, and LH, KL or AF might not have a UK offering either (in fact ISTR that KLM did a very long time ago, but they still had KLM UK at the time, so technically they weren't a foreign airline). Or does LH have a CC in Holland, or AF in Denmark?

I'm not saying that this is right, but I can understand from an airline's point of view they might not want to spend the resource in all the smallish (sorry) countries to set up these deals. And there might not be a CC interested in setting up a deal with a foreign airline that has a small number of passengers in the country.

It's weighing up the benefits - better FFP, lounges or cheaper flights vs more direct and more frequent routings. That's different for every passenger.

By the way HB - no chance of opening a CC account in the UK, and do a reverse euro cheat? I think I've offered you to lease my address before...