NewbieRunner

If you persist a page called 'Recruit new Miles & More members' might eventually appear. So the campaign to recruit new members still exists. However, as photographer2012 has pointed out you don't receive any miles for the effort any longer. I managed to receive 1,000 miles once many years ago.

NewbieRunner

Flights to/from IST are considered "European" and you cannot reserve seats in advance if you are in Economy unless on B or Y fare. You should be able to select seats during online check-in.

Regarding your baggage I think the Special baggage rules for travel to/from or across the USA should apply and you should be able to check additional bags.

NewbieRunner

No experience of booking US domestic awards on their own but according to oliver2002 in this post it's 25/35/50k.

I believe UA BusinessFirst is considered a Business award.

capitalflow

Hello FT

I am connecting in Zurich from Paris next Monday on Swiss on a Business class ticket and am a *G UA 1K. What is the Senators lounge like? Any good? If I get to CDG early, is there a lounge available? Sorry if this seems newbie but the forum indicated it could be.

Wayfahrer

If you were to kind enough to translate this to newbie language.

Anyways, back to my question: you said I can see 'earn miles' promotions on the page without logging in. And I wanted to find the European deal for 15.000 miles in the 'spend miles' section without logging in. Thanks.

I see. As stated before I am open to any other sensible advice on other programs to pursue especially one which comes with a card without forex fees. Forex fees eat into the profits you earn by miles.

hdogan

Look out for Mileage Bargains, too. You might just get lucky

hdogan

I referred my wife several years ago, and upon inquiring with M&M, they confirmed that no miles are awarded for signing up new members anymore.

hdogan

After 402 posts, one would assume you're not a newbie anymore

Lufthansa charges ridiculous amounts of "Fuel Surcharges" on their tickets. For discounted booking classes, Fuel Surcharge ("YQ") is discounted too; for award tickets, they charge full amount of YQ, as if you booked the most expensive booking class. When you book economy awards in Europe, there are two possible scenarios:

1. For those flights where there is award availability, there are usually also discounted booking classes available; this leads to a paradox that it is cheaper to buy a discounted ticket, than to pay for YQ for an award (and give away your miles too).

2. For those flights where there are no discounted booking classes available (i.e. it would make sense to sacrifice your miles), there are probably no more award seats available.

Very rarely will you find economy award tickets which justify burning your miles, no matter how low the amount is (15000). It's better to pool those miles, and redeem long-haul (C or F) awards.

Any intra-european awards, if booked less than two weeks from departure, will cost you 15000 miles + YQ. There are some exceptions (e.g. sometimes weekends are unavailable), but that is the general rule. Furthermore, you can get intra-europe flights for even 10000 miles, as part of M&M's Mileage Bargains offer. Google is your friend.

I'm sorry, but FT is a practically endless pool of information on that, as well as all of your other questions. We don't know anything about you, and can't advise you on what to do - your decision should be made based on your location, flying pattern, whether you aim for status or redemption.... And, most of all, it should be done by *you*. Every single question you asked so far would be answered if you only took the trouble to look through Sticky threads in respective fora, or used the wonderful Search capability of FT (or Google, for that matter).

malmostoso

I know! Just now LH is running a special on YVR and SEA, two cities I'd like to see in my trip.
Ideally I wanted to fly out to YVR and then do an open jaw from PDX, but there seems to be very low availability on PDX-BRU (something from AC and US, but US probably won't be applicable anyway).
I'll check again when I actually have the miles in my account.

Thanks again!

N1003U

You were joking, weren't you?

There is a reason why Google is often a better alternative for searches, even within FT...@:-)

NewbieRunner

YuropFlyer

Yes, there is a *G lounge in CDG, but as much as I know it's not very good. (I heard it's in the basement)

Regarding ZRH, if you arrive in the morning, head to the Swiss Arrival lounge for breakfast/brunch, MUCH superior to the offerings in the SEN lounge. Also much better showers.

I don't know where you'll be flying to (as you've not indicated it) but no regular departure lounge is better than the Arrival lounge. It's only a few minutes (through security, as the Arrival lounge is landside) to Gates A/B/D from landside in Zurich, and even the remote E gates won't take longer than 15 minutes to reach.

capitalflow

Thank you! Connect onto Vienna. Alas, coming back via Frankfurt. I had heard the arrivals lounge was pretty good but didn't know if it would feasible with about a 90 minute connecting time.

NewbieRunner

If you are originating in VIE you won't have access to the Arrival Lounge in FRA. The new SEN lounge in FRA pier A (on the way to gate A50 and slightly hidden) is not bad.

YuropFlyer

Assuming you mean 90 minutes in ZRH: Yes, totally possible, and absolutely suggested to go there. Just leave it 30-35 minutes before your flight departs (if your arrival is on time, this gives you about 50-55 minutes in the arrival lounge, enough time for a nice shower and a slow breakfast.)