totti

That's wrong. EVERYBODY can get a german M&M CC as long as he can provide a german bank account. EVERYBODY can apply for (and will most likely get) a german bank account even if he is not a resident.

Anyway, that's just a minor point.

I don't understand all the excitement here. So far BD DC is still in place and there is no press release (not even reports by reliable sources) that DC will be merged with M&M any time soon.

Before complaining and rant about M&M you may want to visit the M&M forum and learn more about the program because there is obviously a lot of misinformation here. M&M is probably not the best FFP you can think of but it is not all that bad.

Best,
totti

Guava

Emphasis mine. Sure, everybody can apply. As to whether they'll be approved one or even be allowed to hold down to one for any significant amount of time, racking points in the FT style as described here, that's highly doubtful. Besides, the approval decision rests with the bank in quesiton and is most definitely on a case by case basis; I doubt you or anyone else is in a position to give qualified comment on the success rate. Anyway, that's a minor point. I assure you I have been gathering information and reading on "witness accounts" in the LH forum this past weekend. It is very tempting for me to get into a full rebuttal here, along with the earlier claims made by Flying Lawyer. However, I am burried right now but it shall be soon. I'll say this for now since I don't have much time to elaborate - my research uncovered that the whole M&M German CC for unlimited LH miles at a very low cost is a barely functioning deal for a very small number of German residents, let alone for people not residing in Germany, at this time. This included report from Germany based FTer who said he'd be warned by the issuing bank about potential misuse and threat of cancellation. Frankly, the whole permise stated by Flying Lawyer to begin with and then stretched to somehow covered all interested persons regardless of residency, is an overstated claim that has little basis or probability of succeding in reality. Not to mention, potentially tremendous waste / cost in money and time. More of this will be elaborated here in due course, including the raison d'etre of why this deal even exist in Germany and why this proposal is unsuitable for people not residing in Germany.

Thanks for stating the obvious, however, when the pink elephant is waving at you from across the room, you don't need to pretend it doesn't exist.

Uh...I guess you must have missed my little intrusion of your forum recently: Here

Before making assumptions about other people, it's usually considered polite to talk to them first and ask questions. I don't know you and I certainly won't start to make assumptions about your knowledge or motivation without talking to you first. And for you to assume the people here are uneducated about LH M&M is, I think, an equally unwise proposition.

That said, when I was on a fact finding covert mission two days ago, I was immediately spotted by Flying Lawyer, which forced me to quickly hide again. That's why you haven't seen me openly in the LH forum but rest assured, I have been gathering the info I need that is relevant to the topic at hand here.

Guava

I think that's a fair question and I wouldn't assume all Gold will be comped to SEN either. There may be a further breakdown based on the # of status miles cumulated. It is entirely possible that LH will decide that anyone with less than 100K status miles shall get no better than a match to Frequent Traveller status.

Even those who get comped to SEN, it is also unclear whether they will be given full membership & benefits. For example, would the 2 eVouchers be given to the comp SEN from BD DC? I think nobody can say it for certain what LH M&M will do. When Swiss Travel Club was merged, due to some calendar year difference, the Swiss FFP members were in fact given less than 2 years of time (more like 1 year and 8 months) to re-qualify for LH M&M status. Was it unfair? Sure it was. Did LH care? Nope, to them, Swiss was too small to be of any relevance. The BD DC revolving qualification year will make the matter even more complicate, so it is wise to plan against the probability that M&M will unilateraly give you a raw deal - not personally - but due to timing difference or whatever, it may have unintented adverse impact on you. So it's wise to think about your options and what you can do if and when the deal is so bad that you will be better off go to your Plan B.

Flying Lawyer

I am tempted to ask you (but will refrain), which airline different from Deutsche Lufthansa AG put you on your payroll. You actually have no experience with M&M but you feel to be competent to judge from postings, not from the experience of M&M experts like bau31888 or totti.

This will be my last comment on this; this discussion will not bring anybody any further. However, anybody in this forum having a serious question about M&M (I am with this program since it was first introduced in 1993, however, I am BA and BD Gold too) is cordially invited to PM me and I am sure, all the other regulars of the LH forum offer the same friendship.

Guava

Keep in mind, though, in the long-run (10~20 years), inflationary forces will definitely erode your mileage purchasing power somewhat no matter which FFP you choose. Although the Japanese FFPs are remarkable in that they have remained relatively intact, who is to say that will still be the case 10 years from now? A lot of things could change and one of the main reason why ANA or JAL has been able to kept award charts that are not inflated year after year may be in part philosophical. However, if the current CEO or management team changes / retires, I wouldn't bet on the new generation will necessarily hold the same philosophy to heart.

I like your programs of choice based on what you said your needs are. OZ Asiana Club, IMO, is another fairly stable FFP that is unlikely going to suffer major devaluations the way it is set up. Plus, as you know, there are strong consumer protection laws in place in Korea that prevented them from making sudden changes without a waiting period of 2 years. The decision to go after the OZ Platinum / Lifetime status, in my view, is a very smart decision on your part. BD also offers lifetime status, which would have been nice except now it may not survive. So, it's probably a good idea to see how you can fit mileage using/buring into to your flying patterns. Many people here on FT who fly a lot tend to mix paid flying with award travel, whether as part of a RTW or variation of. It seems all your business travel are paid for by your employer and you don't seem to care about seat upgrades, then you should explore about alternative use of your miles other than redeeming them for travel unless you can put in a plan of actively burning/using some of your miles every year. Keep in mind that OZ miles expire in 7 years, so you do need to use them as you go or at least have a plan to do so. I have heard that you can eventually use your miles (forgot which airline though, could be VS) to redeem a free space travel trip, when and if that becomes available. @:-) Travelling to outer space on miles, now that's an idea. ^ And I assure you, there are more "down to Earth" alternatives too.

ANA does have an unpublished VIP tier, above the published ANA Diamond tier. If you can hit that invitation only tier, that would meet most of the needs you said here. Plus, go for OZ lifetime Platinum and if you have U.S. residency status + U.S. social security number, I would apply for the Asiana AMEX issued by Bank of America, it complements the OZ FFP really well, 2 Asiana miles per $USD spent. Another thing to consider the the JAL Global Club. It is a parallel program besides JAL's regular FFP. You can join JAL Global Club once you hit 50K status miles with JAL, it would help you maintain Oneworld Sapphire status in the event you no longer fly or fly at all and it will also help hitting Oneworld Emerald (top tier) and no expiry of your mileage a bit more easily. Last but not least, JAL also offers a JAL Family Club. While it doesn't look like you share miles with your family at this time, JAL Family Club give you an extra 300 miles everytime you board a JAL flight. This can really add up and is a nice bonus. When you decide to share your life with a life partner, your spouse will be able to use those miles, pooled together. Incidentally, this pooling of miles is avaiable at OZ, JL and NH, in one form or the other. Be aware that unless you can hit the unpublished VIP tier with these airlines, your miles will expire in 3 years after your top tier status elapsed, so that's something you need to be careful about.

You are welcome, glad to be of service.

Swanhunter

Back to the original question, I'm not. BD miles haven't changed in value for me yet. While they may in the future I can think of plenty of things to use them on now. F returns on LH to SAH and CAI spring to mind and I must find an excuse to try LX too.

Guava

Normally, each country maintains its own credit history tracking and that record is generally not transferrable although some credit card companies such as AMEX and HSBC are known to provide their international customers with a referral/matching service when they move from one country to another.

In addition to credit history, banks generally ask for proof of income in your country of residence. Although in Germany, the usage and understanding of CC is slightly different in that CC is often paid in full at the end of month like a charge card; the basic requirements do not seem to differ that much from the standard credit card application requirements.

One of the key questions in this thread is whether a UK person who has no source of income denominated in Germany or Euro and who is not of German descent can successfully apply and obtain a LH M&M Credit/Debit card that earn LH miles at about 20,000 miles for 250 Euros. If such claim turns out to be true and doable, FT logic /history suggests, we should have seen waves of foreigners doing MR to Germany and open German bank accounts and take advantage of this great opportunity, which by all measures, is a fairly cheap way to buy miles. According to anecdotal reports provided in this thread by a few members, the claim was, "Yes, it's doable and has been discussed extensively in the LH forum before." In supporting this claim, a link to the original thread re: this opportunity was provided here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...3375-euro.html

However, before discussing the details of this mileage generating CC unique to Germany, I'd like to answer the question of eligibility first. Since I found no evidence, not even a single report of a foreign resident / non-German able to obtain such CC in the above mentioned thread, I was forced to spend a great deal of time doing a broader scan of the LH forum. To do so, I set the search timeframe at 2 years, which brought us slightly beyond the original date of the above thread to make sure the search timeframe is appropriate and the key word used: "credit card". FT Search function returned over 695 results in the LH forum over this timeframe. Then I began the time consuming tasks of isolating potentially relevant threads, which amounted to a dozen. In all of them, there was no report of foreigner or non-resident successfully obtaining CC in Germany. On the contrary, there is strong evidence to the contray based on the following and very recent conversation:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-any-good.html

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The conversation seems crystal clear and in this 59 posts thread, excluding my own inquiry, which has yet to be answered; not a single soul disputed the account provided by member, SwissCircle. In addition, the OP who asked the question was in fact a new resident of Germany with UK citizenship. Yet, despite having moved to Germany, the advice given to him by the LH forum collectivity is that he cannot obtain a CC in Germany just yet. And another example was given regarding an American citizen, supposedly moved to Germany with a very high income, yet was also denied by German banks.

Of the 695 items returned by the Search Function, while unable to find evidence to substantiate the claims made by certain members in this thread, I hope to be proven wrong. Until then, I have to go by these available reports, which is that foreigners are not eligible to obtain Credit/Charge card in Germany.

That said, let's set aside the question of eligibility and assumed for a second that a UK flyer can indeed magically obtain a LH M&M credit card in Germany without much obstacles, the follow up question then becomes, how to use it? In this thread, cited above:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...3375-euro.html

It became clear that German banks are aware and actively looking for potential misuse of these M&M credit cards.

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The bottom line is this cash advance / balance transfer is meant as a way to induce/encourage the German public to use credit card / electronic fund transfer services, where due to cultural reasons, Germany has low acceptance rate of these products. The intented audience, without a shadow of doubt, is residents of Germany. Mileage earning and the relatively low transaction cost is meant as way to induce people to use it even though the German banks know full well that such practice is generally not allowed elsewhere. To this end, the cap of 20,000 miles / month is a sensible precaution taken by them against abuse, in addition to actively scanning for people using this for the sole purpose of getting miles. This also means the usefulness to a foreigner is fairly limited, even if it were possible to begin with, which it isn't.

1) The bank will be looking for legitimate transactions in Germany such as paying bills in Germany or paying for businesses or services. This means, even if you are successful in getting the card, you face a high probability of having the bank exercising their right to cancel your account shortly after.

2) Foreigners who do not have a vested interest in German business will undoubtedly only want to profit from the mileage earning ability of such transaction, which is surely and automaticlally, a red flag. Another reason for the bank to cancel it on you.

3) Foreigners will also face additional risks such as FX losses, potential accusation of money laundering and other potential red flags by authorities

All in all, a lot of troubles for nothing. Maybe you can squeeze 50K~100K miles out of this before being caught but suffice to say, this is most definitely not a viable deal for a UK person whatsoever. Not to mention all the troubles and risks you have to deal with. Even if somehow, the bank lets you do it, soon or later, the losses you'll cumulate on the FX will eat away any savings you may have made unless your source of income is denominated in Euros.

For a German resident, this deal, if properly used, can indeed be great and viable. For non-resident of Germany and no income in Euros, not only it is difficult to be eligible for this "buy miles" trick, it seems like a very raw deal no matter how you cut it. The last thing anyone needs is to be denied entry into Germany because somehow authorities think you are laundering money for some reasons, that would be not good at all.

This deal reminded me somewhat of this, which is now a locked thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...hkg-400-a.html

The bottom line is, unless you are the nationals of these countries in question, as a foreigner, you'll be tempting a lot trying to take advantage of what is obviously reserved for the people of that country only.

My advice: Don't try it, it's way too risky.

totti

Obviously you ask people to abide by the rules but do not follow them yourself. I don't mind though.

There is a huge difference between information and education from an epistemological point of view. I never said that anyone here is uneducated but that there is some misinformation.

Just one example: it was stated more than once that some members have to suffer if others are able to earn cheap miles "on the ground". Sure: someone has to pay the bill. But Miles and More has a totally different approach than most other FFPs. They are a profit center within Deutsche Lufthansa AG and sell miles to their partners at a pretty high rate. If we as members earn the miles they are already paid by the partner who hands them out. So far M&M is quite successful with this business model.

This is a very interesting and valid analysis. However not everything is correct. The thread you are referring to is almost 2 years old. Some things have changed in the meantime.

Just have a look at this thread. It is definitely possible to open a german bank account as a foreigner.

Now that they introduced the cap for this earning opportunity, it is highly unlikely that they'll still complain about members using this service extensively and sending out warnings. As of 2/1/2009 you can't get more than 20k miles per billing cycle. So I don't see the risk part in this case.

Again, I do see the advantages of BD DC and the possible disadvantages in case of a merger. Still it is a long way to go and I wouldn't bother to much at the moment. LH needs an competitive FFP in the UK to be on par with BA and DC is perfectly fine for this purpose right now.

Dambus

This has got to be the most verbose thread ever seen on the DC forum.

Why do I get the feeling that the post merger integration of the M&M and DC fora here on FT will be at least as tricky as that of LH & bmi......?

NewbieRunner

Who said the M&M and DC fora would be integrated on FT? Who wants them integrated? I certainly don't .

mclachlan4321

Hi,

I read quite a lot on here about the forthcoming demise of DC :-(

As M+M seems to be not such a good program, which affiliationsa re some of you thinking about?

I realise it depends upon where in the world each person flies the most, but which are the most beneficial regarding miles and rewards?

thank you.

AJO

*A is still the best alliance for my needs, even when BD will be gone. OZ, TK or AC would probably "fit" the best for my needs (some paid premium travel but mostly economy; lounge access is the biggest *G "plus" for me).

FelixB

It also depends on what classes you fly and who you are flying mostly. M&M might not be that bad if you fly integrated partners or C & F, especially when considering the competition.

Traveloguy

Personally I will stick to M&M once the changeover happens. There is a good chance I can maintain SEN and overall it's not a bad programme, especially if you are redeeming two tickets at a time (and not one-way tickets).

There are two features of BD which I will very much miss:

- Cash and Miles (although if I can keep my credit cards as they are and use Raffles trick to pay taxes and earn miles, I can go some way to overcoming this)

- One way tickets for half the price of a return unlike LH's inflated options.

Otherwise, especially for Euro travel and the occasional flight in Y, M&M is looking pretty good for me.

I should however state that I think LH's upgrade instruments are pretty stingy for SENs although I guess it is better than what we presently have with BD.

bmi goldenboy

I'm trying to work out if BA will be my best option. I only fly Y with work and C or F on redemptions to the US. BA prices have been very competitive this year against SAS, LH and TK. With BD pretty much pulling out of GLA-MAN and maybe LBA I'm loosing those miles anyway. They've also pulled the late friday night LHR - GLA which leaves me to use BA or travel on Sat morning. BA seems on the face of it a better option than M+M but I've not put in the work to make the calculations yet.