[Newbie Question] Stick with Miles&More or swap?
 

Hi

I'm relatively new to the airlines programmes, am much more familiar with hotel programmes. Wondered if anyone would be able to help with the following:

• I have a relatively small balance in the Lufthansa Miles and More scheme (4,000)
  
• I have long distance flights from UK --> Kenya coming up with *A partners (Swiss Air and Brussels Airlines)
  
• I realised I have complimentary United Airlines Silver status (as I'm a Marriott platinum member).

Any advice as to what to do?

Thanks

4000 M&M miles is so little that you should take it out of the equation completely. Otherwise it depends on what you want. The UA*S will get you priority rebooking in case of IRROPS, that should be useful to you.

Thanks for the quick response.

I am based in the UK, so will probably fly with Lufthansa / Swiss more than United.

I guess my question, is Silver worth anything to me on those flights, to make it worth essentially 'losing' those 4,000 miles in Miles&More, e.g. will it give me any chance of an upgrade.

You really don't seem like anything that comes close to a frequent flyer.

Without an additional source of miles (eg a credit card) or some business class fares in your near future you won't get anywhere with any of the programs.

I'm not really (got Bronze membership with BA, and 100k miles), but if I earn a lot from these flights, I might change some of my flights to *A.

So is silver likely to net me anything, or should I stick with the Miles&More, as I will be more likely to fly them in future?

Cheers for the help.

Edit: From this page ( https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...ralliance.aspx ), it seems like Silver is pretty worthless for someone with my travel pattern, so not worth 'losing' the Miles&More miles..

Write down all your planned flights for 2014 and using Webflyer try to calculate how many miles you will get. Just consider 100% earning without bonuses (you don't mention whether you'll fly business or economy, so let's go for 100%).

If the total miles is above 30k/35k then you can start shopping around various FFP to see who will get you the best reward. Otherwise just credit to M&M and then use those miles for a short city trip in Europe (mind the fuel surcharges).

Having *S with M&M is not too bad if you fly LH/LX/SN often and have access to a LH/LX/SN business lounge. On the other hand, having *S won't be much use if you fly with other carriers.

Sorry... but that is really bad advice. Have you looked at the M&M earning charts lately? Nothing but (full priced) business will get you 100%.
If I see that 4.000 miles I'm willing to bet that was one long-haul in economy. It will now take about 8-10 of those to even get to FTL/*S level.

And spending miles on an intra-Europe trip is equally bad advice, you are better of (95& of the routes) simply buying a ticket, taxes/fees on M&M awards are higher than what you pay for a revenue ticket.

Sorry, but not really worth it. You simply have too little flying to get you anything that is remotely worth chasing. Use your *S for that *A flight and forget about the rest. The only thing that might be worth looking at is the Aegean FFP, their *G threshold is quite low. But I don't think your one flight will get you there, unless it's full priced business class.

I have seen them. However OP gave us no information about the flying pattern so I took what realistically is a good middle-of-the-road approximation.

What I did not look at was UA's earning chart, which is actually quite interesting, and seems to pay 100% for most Y fares on LX/LH/SN.

So it actually might be worth chasing status with UA and forget the M&M miles altogether.

Bottom line, as you said, is that OP doesn't seem to be a frequent flyer by any stretch of the imagination, so wherever those miles end up will have to be used relatively quickly.

Thanks for all the input :)

Been doing some investigating as to what I'll earn with fare codes etc, using webflyer.com's mileage calculator, and it looks as if:

Flight 1: London -> Zurich (Swiss) , Q , 489 miles
Flight 2: Zurich -> Nairobi (Swiss) , Q , 3,780 miles
Flight 3: Nairobi -> Brussels (Brussels) , E , 4,080 miles
Flight 4: Brussels -> London (Brussels) , E , 217 miles

Using Miles&More:
Flight 1: 750 miles (fixed)
Flight 2: 1,890 (0.5 * miles flown)
Flight 3: 1,020 (0.25 * miles flown)
Flight 4: 125 miles (fixed)

Total: 3,785

Using United:
Flight 1: 489 (100% miles flown)
Flight 2: 3,780 (100% miles flown)
Flight 3: 0 (E not listed in chart)
Flight 4: 0 (E not listed in chart)

Total: 4,269 miles


Does this look right? I earn more with a partner scheme than I do with the actual scheme member?

On this basis, bearing in mind Silver seems to net me very little, I'll probably stick with Miles&More... I have 200K Virgin Atlantic miles, and 90K BA miles, so I do fly, just haven't with *A...

Looks about right.... but your comparison misses the mark. It's not that simple that you can compare a mile in one scheme simply to one mile in another. It's not like it's currency you can spend freely.

Every program has different thresholds for reaching elite levels and for awards. So they should be valued based on what the program is offering, and even better what your personal benefits are. And then the reality is that such a flight in economy (and the return in discounted economy) isn't worth much, if anything at all. Having 4k miles in M&M is totally useless, you cannot even give them away :-).

SWISS E earns 100% on United: http://www.united.com/cms/en-US/mark...spx?itemid=297

But since the flights are to/from BRU I assume it's being flown on SN :-).

Yeah, Brussels Airlines for flights 3 and 4, which according to United don't earn on E.

The summary from this thread, is essentially, don't worry about it :)

Good to know :)