Stair Way

Hi there,

I will most likely shift from LHR to MUC as my main airport because of Brexit so I thought some other will have looked into the option of changing from Executive Club to Miles & More as well. So far I have been uber loyal to BA but that might end when moving to MUC.

So I compared M&M to Executive Club and was shocked:

If I look for example at a LHR-MUC return flight, I would earn between 250 and 2.500 M&M miles. To purchase this flight with M&M miles I would have to spend a whopping 35.000.

On BA the same route would earn me between 290 and 1.156 Avios and cost me 9.000 Avios to purchase.

That seems like a massive difference, only being made worse by the fact that it is not possible to credit AMEX reward points towards M&M.

Is the difference between BA's and LH's frequent flyer program really this big or am I missing something?

papyPiHi

Now you understand why LH's program is nicknamed "Miles no More".
Would've been in the same boat as you had I acecpted an offer in Germany a few years ago, so looked at the possibilities, tbh oyu're better off going with TK or A3 if your flying pattern makes you book in classes that allow mileage redemption on star carriers (I remember LH,OS and LX have fares on which no miles are earned, whether on M&M or Star FQTV)

corporate-wage-slave

Not really. LH is one of the toughest frequent flyer schemes out there, unless you are packing in the long haul and getting Senator status off the back of it. There are better Star alliances, notably Aegean and Turkish, but these schemes often give a weak earning to Lufthansa's fare groups (and vice versa). United may be an option too, and this is in between. BAEC works really well at the Silver to Gold "mainly short haul and the odd longhaul" traveller. LH have other advantages, for example redemption availability I find is quite good, and East Europe network is unbeatable. Lounge coverage in Europe is better than BA too (though I suspect BAEC management don't know how this is hurting them).

The reality is that frequent flyer programmes all have weak and strong points. BAEC, in my opinion, remains probably the strongest overall, and if you're essentially a short haul traveller, Lufthansa really isn't a good alternative. If you are more of a Silver traveller then Flying Blue is probably the nearest alternative to BAEC.

lhrsfo

The picture will look very different if you look at long haul premium cabins and take YQ into account. So it really depends on how you earn and how you burn. The only way you can really get to the bottom of it is to put some real life numbers based on your own flying into a spreadsheet.

Two other thoughts: *A tends to have better award availability on more airlines, which may be relevant depending on where and when you fly; and MUC is a fantastic airport - far nicer than LHR in pretty well every respect.

Flip42

There is a way if you have a German Amex. Albeit at a worse rate (2:1). You can convert MR points to Payback points and those to M&M miles.

greg5

In many cases you could end up earning NO miles in discount Y. I was pretty close to getting LH's lowest elite level. All I needed was some miles from a long haul flight in Y. LH changed the rules, and I got 0 miles on my next ZRH-FRA-SEA flight in Y, and no status. After that, I decided that BA wasn't so bad, and went back to flying on BA.

navylad

Interesting. Purely out of interest, why is 'Brexit' causing you to change?