Flight Award Cancellation: Changes in Terms&Conditions
 

Not sure when this was changed, but have a look at conditions for M&M Award Cancellations copied from the Terms and Conditions:

In the event of a cancellation, you can choose between the following two alternatives:
2.3.1 Alternative 1
With the first alternative, only the taxes and fees are refunded. Miles and airline surcharges are not refundable. You do not incur any additional costs. If you have paid the taxes, fees and airline surcharges at a flat rate using miles, the surcharges are equivalent to 10,000 miles. This means that in the event of cancellation the amount paid in miles for taxes, fees and airline surcharges are reimbursed less an amount of 10,000 miles.

2.3.2 Alternative 2
In the second alternative, the miles and airline surcharges are refunded in addition to the taxes and fees. In return, you will be charged €50 per person and cancellation (or the equivalent value in a foreign currency). This type of refund will be made only at your express request.

At present, flight awards booked online can only be cancelled or (where permitted) rebooked through your local Miles & More Team.


This means that I need to explicitly mention that I want my miles back and willing to pay 50 EUR cancellation fee the next time I cancel a flight award with M&M. Otherwise I might only get the taxes back ...

You must specify one or the other. Neither is the default. This largely clarifies a fairly standardized understanding, e.g. that there is what amounts to a redeposit fee for the miles, but not a cancellation fee.

I think it's a combination of two factors, one, to try to generate ancillary revenue, but also to prevent people from just booking awards and do no shows, rebookings etc. therefore blocking award space for others. I recall the days when I was UA1K and I ended up having nearly a dozen changes to a single itin and a few cases where I booked several awards, let Mrs. cas_de decide on her preferred destination and then canceling the other award(s).

I get that Alternative 1 is new, but until now wasn't there always a €50 fee to cancel awards (and get your miles back)?

Since one-way awards were introduced I have often preferred to book two singles rather than a return for long-haul C/F as it gives me flexibility in case of changing plans without having to cancel and rebook the entire itinerary with the risk of losing the leg on a non-LH flight. Also YQ charges on a single award back from some destinations are significantly less than having to pay double the European YQ on a return award. A small bonus is that the miles required are half that of a return, but rounded down if an odd number.
The 50 EUR cancellation fee has been around for as long as I can remember but agree with worldclubber that it is reasonable for the convenience.

The two disadvantages of this approach are:

1. no stopovers on O/W awards
2. The YQ situation can be both ways (low or no YQ for booking from some countries, horrible extra high YQ for booking from others, like US)

Don't disagree, and have booked return awards when I wanted a stopover. However on my last couple of trips to Asia I was glad to have both the flexibility to change my return routing and savings on YQ. As I am flexible with dates, for the US Meilenschnäppchen usually work out best, despite the known restrictions.