Originally Posted by
lloydbuck
Hi, I live in the UK and have been a member of M+M for a number of years. However, with their programme having gone revenue based, and the loss of the UK credit card to prevent miles expiring, I'm thinking it's time to burn the earned miles and 'jump ship' to a new loyalty programme. I've been particularly hurt by the devaluation of flying premium economy to Hong Kong on LH, I fly this every 18 months or so, and have gone from earning 13,500 miles for it, to about 3200.
(1) What is your home airport? MAN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Discount economy,especially intra-Europe although I've started buying N when flying long-haul to relatives in Hong Kong every 18 months
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Return trip to HKG every 18 months, one intra-Europe flight per year - no more than 15,000 miles.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? No
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Ability to earn miles which don't expire on a distance-based mileage chart, and have access to reasonably priced redemptions in J
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: MAN-HKG, MAN-ZRH
(7) Preferred Airlines: LH, LX, OS, but open to most *A carriers who fly to HKG
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure
I feel your pain. LH's recent changes have killed M&M as a feasible proposition for many others, I'm sure.
With your travel patterns I'd recommend SK or A3. If HKG is your main long-haul trip then I'd recommend flying SK and then crediting either to their Eurobonus scheme or to A3's Miles & Bonus. SK are switching their HKG route from ARN to CPH, and that should be more convenient for you if you're coming from MAN. They also have the advantage of offering very good deals in PE classes for HKG flights (hopefully it will still be similar when they switch to CPH). If you credit to A3 you even get 200% on SK PE flights.
Even though you prefer LH, etc., from a mileage perspective I don't think it makes sense to fly them on that route anymore, given what you've already discovered about their paltry miles and the lack of earnings from PE. It's not like M&M has a surfeit of other benefits to attract people. For us based in CEE, it's hard to avoid their tractor beam pull (and Lufty knows this very well) but I find very little in it for UK-based flyers.