Lufthansa cuts return flights to Germany to just 7,000 miles for the Summer

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Miles & More, the frequent flyer scheme for the Lufthansa family of airlines, is shockingly poor value for most short-haul redemptions.

We are talking about 30,000 miles PLUS £130-ish of taxes for a return economy flight!

This compares to 9,000 Avios plus £35 of taxes for a British Airways redemption.

Lufthansa has launched a Summer sale which offer substantial savings. The downside is that you still have to pay those taxes.

Until September 30th, you will pay only 7,000 miles plus £130 tax for a Miles & More economy redemption from London to anywhere in Germany flown by Lufthansa.

Note that I only said ‘London’. This offer is NOT available from any other UK airport served by Lufthansa – and that is the only reason I would have recommended it. Anyone living in London is still better with an Avios redemption if they can get seats.

There is another snag. Lufthansa only flies direct to Frankfurt and Munich from London. All other routes have been passed to Germanwings. Unless you are willing to connect in Germany AND pay over £200 of tax, you are restricted to those two cities.

The offer is also available to / from Bologna, Genoa, Milan, Rome, Riga, Amsterdam, Gdansk, Krakow, Moscow, St Petersburg, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Tallinn. It may have some value to Russia via Frankfurt if you could do that for 14,000 miles plus tax – but you need to book it as two separate flights. In general, though, this deal simply shows you how poor Miles & More is for short haul.

Note that these discounted redemptions cannot be cancelled or changed. Day trips are not permitted.

PS. If I am being honest, Miles & More is not totally shocking value for destinations further away from London. Heathrow to Moscow, for example, is the same 30,000 miles at standard prices at Heathrow to Frankfurt. That is marginally better value if you can’t get a cheap easyJet or BA flight.

Category

Lufthansa and Miles & More

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Jimmy says:

14 Jul14 July 08:39

I’ve just started flying regularly to Germany. With BA status and Avios earning now such a dead loss, I thought a bit of loyalty with Lufty might be worth a go?

It isn’t – and for many of the reasons Raffles highlights. These trips aren’t going to earn me status with either airline (especially as my BA year-end is only four months away – why no rolling year for Blues?), the earning rates are pathetic and the burning costs are ludicrous.

So, for the first time in my career I’m resigned to go for price-sensitive flying. It’s just embarrassing to go to the hassle of arranging travel plans around a handful of points. Status, yes. A reasonable reward of points, yes. But this? No.
- helper says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 09:07
  
  How regularly? 25 return flights a year will earn you silver? I find it’s easier to pick up avios from other channels (such as Amex sign-up bonuses). 20,000 gets you 2 return flights in near Europe with a few left over
mikeact says:

14 Jul14 July 09:12

For comparison,maybe, lowest FB, UK to Germany,20k miles + 120 Euros.
czechoslovakia says:

14 Jul14 July 09:23

Whilst LH economy short haul redemptions are relatively poor value – (this is only due to RFS), you can pay ALL taxes and charges for an extra 15,000 miles (within EU). Given my usual monthly trip from Prague to Manchester earns me around 3750 miles, this means I get one GENUINELY free trip for every 7 to 10 paid economy DISCOUNTED trips. I`d say that stacked quite well against the BAEC / Avios offering. Oh yes, also availability virtually 100% more than 3 days out, on almost everything. And double dip on PPB, even as a solo traveller/firm. Or a huge range of products in the worldshop, in case you`re fed up of travel. I`m saving up for a Rimowa alu case. 85% there 🙂
Lady London says:

14 Jul14 July 10:58

Lufthansa completely ******ed my round the world award. They switched flights I was booked on to Germanwings that made it impossible for the adjacent award flights to work any more. They cancelled an important leg and just told me no more flights that day and refused to provide perfectly acceptable alternatives on other airlines. The early legs were all LH so they were responsible for fixing the ticket. They simply refused to take responsibility for what they had done and would not fix it. I get tickets changed to other airlines now when work books them with any segment on LH.
Alan says:

14 Jul14 July 14:43

What a rubbish offer! They could have potentially done OK too if they’d made it available to regional airports too, as it would have looked quite favourable compared to the new BA double-Avios-for-the-joys-of-spending-hours-in-LHR malarkey!
- Rob says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 15:12
  
  My thoughts exactly. From Manchester etc it would have been an acceptable deal, especially on peak Summer days.
Alex says:

16 Jul16 July 14:08

Ehm; £135 is not taxes. Taxes on the ticket are about 13 pounds I think. Other than airport service charges (30 pounds?), the rest (about 90 pounds) is a direct payment to LH’s coffins.

Carrier LH SNC26OW LON to FRA (rules)
Passenger type ADT, ONE-WAY-ONLY fare, booking code S
United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty (GB) £13.00
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge (UB) £32.18