berlinflyer

Hi,
I know that you cannot value M&M miles always the same way, because it depends on how what you use them for (i.e. C award ticket to US for 90k has higher value than sth from the WorldShop for 90k), but in general:

What´s the $$ value of 100.000 M&M?

I am asking this because a friend of mine has about 110.000 miles in his account and the company he works for will only let him use them if he is willing to "pay" for it, as he has achieved them by flying on company tickets.
In general, he has no problem with that but asked me about a fair $$ value...

What do you think would be a reasonable price for 100k miles??
Any ideas??

ANstar

I would have thought the miles are in his name so it has nothing to do with his employer???

AJLondon

My personal valuation for the redemption of LH miles is

100,000 miles = Ł1,000 = €1,450 approx.

berlinflyer

Yes they are. As far as I have understood they told him that he can either use them for business travel (since the company paid for the flights in which he received the mils) or pay for them if he wants to use them for private trips.

Stefan0521

The value of the miles depends very much on what you intend to do with them. Just a few examples:

- 100.000 M&M are a little bit more than 2/3 of a flight Germany -> USA in F, which was about 5000 - 6000 EUR when I last had a look. So I'd say 4000 EUR at best.

- 100.000 M&M would also be a Y flight Germany -> Australia, that would be worth around 1000 EUR.

- And finally, if you'd trade them for car rental vouchers, airline upgrades and the like, you'll probably get much less value out of it. I don't know the exact numbers though.

Generally, travelling in F seems to be the best way to squeeze the maximum value out of your miles, but I'd of course try to pay much less than that for the miles.

One more point to consider. If I recall it correctly, companies who give M&M to their customers, like hotel chains or car rental companies pay something around 8 EUR for 1000 Miles, so that's the other side of the story...

I hope that helps

Regards,
Stefan

bertheike

May be you or your friend take a look at ebay !
http://cgi.ebay.de/30000-Lufthansa-M...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/10-000-Miles-and-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/90-000-PRAMIEN-ME...QQcmdZViewItem
here you will see that vouchers will be around 150 - 160 Euro by 10k, so around 1550 Euro for 100k

If the miles are already in an account, they seem to be a litle bit less value.

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
I would say around 1400 Euro per 100k

I know someone who buys for 110 Euro per 10k and sells for 155 Euro , but only accounts from 90k up !

I hope that gives you an idea.

flysurfer

Difficult question. With its different uses for award travel (including one-way awards), the ticket value of miles used on free flights can widely differ. Not to mention that a substantial discount must be subtracted from any full-fare ticket's price due to restricted availability and inventory.

If you simply look at the cost of "buying" miles through external promotion sources (newspaper subscriptions, Superpoints etc.), I'd say it's possible to obtain 100,000 award miles for less than 1,000 EUR. Actually, 800-900 EUR should be realistic.

OTOH, I don't think LH and M&M appreciate an employer attaching a dollar value to an employee's mileage account. I guess an employer will only have the right to enforce charges for privately using his miles if this is an elaborated part of his working contract. It would certainly be interesting to know the value a court would attach to 100,000 miles.

rorschi

Hello,

look what you have to pay when you have an account-overdraft and loose your status... - Lok at M&M.com->Status&Privileges->Benefits in brief->Mileage advance

If the mileage account isn't balanced out, Miles & More will invoice any of the miles used. The price per negative mile will be set at €0.024. Use of the miles in advance will imply acceptance of these terms and conditions.

As I use my miles usually for longhauls in C, the value for my purpouses is about 0,012-0,015€/mile (I compare with the cheapest available flight in biz MUC-BKK).

Patrick

FlorianGrassl

That differs very much, from 100 EUR - 240 EUR per 10.000 miles depending, on what method you use to receive the miles.
So i would say that a fair price is the half between those two, so the amount for 100.000 miles would be 1700,-- EUR.
But he and the company should keep in mind that according to the terms and conditions of M&M it is not allowed to sell or buy miles, nor is it allowed to sell or buy award tickets.

P.S. A court uses the 240 EUR per 10.000 miles ratio that LH officially announced by selling the miles for a minimum of that price. I recently was to court and claimed the worth of an award flight that was unnecessary due to the failure of somebody else.

Tyrolean

I would ask my company to try to book a business trip.
In most cases (yes I konw that there are rare exceptions) it will be impossible to book it - due normal short pre-booking time and low availibility.
Then I would discuss with them the topic again.
I would not pay a penny for the miles and book my holiday flights by cash (and get private miles for that).

If they manage it, I would gladly pay for my flights and then I would search for a company that does not make such a fuss.

As employer you should take the following into account:
+ (1) The amount of money that you get form your poor employee
- (2) Cost of the controller/employee spending to calculate the value
- (3) Cost of lower workforce of the employee because of demotivation

If you book a flight with the miles you have:
+ (1) Savings for one business-flight
- (2) Cost of searching an available flight
- (2a) Cost of the restricion of the ticket (rebooking, other routing/timing)
- (3) Cost of lower workforce of the employee because of demotivation

(1) gives you a short term income where (3) gives you a long term loss.

As LH already pays taxes the miles are one of the last leftovers that the employee has not to tax himself, our financial office is one of the big winners himself.

My employees get ther miles for private use because:
- It is such a fuss to keep private and business miles seperated
- It is such a fuss to book award flights on our routes on short notice
- We need flexible tickets
- We can motivate the employees that spent their best ages in the plane
- They are not traveling for fun but for work. We dont punish them even more. Miles are a candy - nothing more.

BTW something about motivation. There can be cheap things that have hight motivation - the value of motivation is much higher than the actual gift. Example: I am building a new home at the moment. Give the workers a pack of cigarettes - cost 4 to 5 Euro - savings for me: Good working climate, faster work done actual savings: Some 1000 Euro.

Same is with miles.

chapinpirulin

Very true indeed and something we forget about just too often!

HamburgAround

I think it is fair enough to take what you paid for.
And it is more than easy to book C/Y-award-flights for European flights even on short notice.
As a court decided that miles belong to the employer (and that he can decide for whom to use they are) there is nothing to say against it.
This is just some way of a cut back in salary for the employee. You could stop earning miles for company flights and kick back, and make LH happy ;-)

But still award tickets aren't always less flexible than paid tickets, as I e.g. would never pay a full fare by myself. So, in most cases, award tickets give higher flexibility and lower change/refund-fees than V/Q...-fares...
I would value those miles between 1400 and 1600 €€€.

hserus

I'd say just go upgrade yourself Y-C or C-F - 50K per intercontinental flight so one longhaul trip (Germany - USA and back) on business can be flown in more comfort than usual. All that's left is finding a flight with new F [if such a beast exists on LH]

SleepOverGreenland

Same here. What a stupid thing to discuss, but of course I know, where it came from. It is so typical German and pure jealousy driven.

When I sent my emps out to the world I earn money with them. No reason to squeeze out everything. I still collect PPB miles, which are used from time to time for a free business trip. But I want motivated emps and M&M miles withdrawel for the company definitely could bring motivation close to zero. I guess, I would have to increase salary instead. IMHO leaving the miles with the emps is the cheapest thing I can do to motivate.

t_no

OK, for the sake of this argumentation you will need the lowest possible price, which would be the wholesale price that LH charges when selling the miles to i.e. credit card companies. And IIRC this is 0.009 EUR plus VAT per mile.