Loyalty Programs. Airlines. Miles & More

Star Alliance is the biggest of the three existing alliances and Miles&More – one of the biggest programs within the alliance.

These are sufficient reasons to start our individual program analysis with this program.

As usual: the structure of the program includes the status part and the award part. We’ll look at both of them in this article.

Few words upfront: Miles & more program was strongly redesigned in the last months, first regarding the status part and more recently regarding the award miles. Articles on the web dated 2023 and before might yet refer to old conditions.

Status level in Miles & more:

Miles and more kept the status levels and benefits as they were before the program relaunch.

You start as member and the first status level is called Frequent Traveller and corresponds to the silver status on the alliance level.

When you reach the Senator status, you are at the gold level within the alliance and you’ll stay on the gold level alliance-wide, when achieving the highest Miles and more level called HON Circle.

You can enjoy the following advantages when flying with airlines within the Star Alliance:

Frequent Traveller	Senator	HON Circle
– Priority on waiting lists – Stand-by priority – Award miles do not expire as long as the status remains valid 50% executive bonus on award miles when flying with airlines offering Miles and more program, ANA and United; 25% bonus on other airlines of the Start Alliance – Frequent Traveller Status for life (achieving the required threshold) Additional benefits when flying on Miles and more participating airlines: Business class check-in Lounge access (only lounges of participating airlines) Higher luggage allowance	In addition to the benefits of Frequent Traveller: – Priority check-in – Priority boarding – Higher luggage allowance – Priority luggage handling – Priority lanes (security and immigration) – Lounge access – Companion awards (50% cheaper award flights) – Upgrade vouchers – Frequent traveller partner status – Senator status for life when achieving the required threshold	In addition to the benefits of Senator, when flying with the airlines participating in Miles and more: – First Class check-in – Limousine service to/ from the plane at selected airports – Senator partner status

As you can see (and as we mentioned in our introduction articles to the airlines programs: status levels and award miles), the most attractive benefits are offered alliance-wide from the Senator/ Gold status.

How can you achieve these statuses?

Since 2024 Lufthansa group changed the old qualification based on the distance miles multiplied with the booked ticket class (not to mix up with the cabin class) and started to apply a point system (similar to that of British Airways). However, there are 3 different qualification types of points you can earn when travelling with the airlines within the Star Alliance:

• Points – can be earned with all Star Alliance airlines and partner airlines of Miles and more
• Qualifying Points – can be earned only on flights with Lufthansa Group and airlines offering Miles and more program
• HON Circle Points – same earning criteria as Qualifying Points, but only when flying in Business or First class

To reach and to maintain a certain status you would need to earn the following points per calendar year:

	Points	Qualifying Points	HON Circle Points
Frequent Traveller	650	325
Senator	2000	1000
HON Circle			6000

Here as well, Lufthansa Group changed its strategy: in order to get the first two status levels (Frequent Traveller and Senator) you need to earn at least the half of the points (= Qualifying Points) on the flights with the airlines of the Lufthansa Group.

To reach the HON Circle status is possible only if you earn sufficient HON Circle Points which implies that all of them need to be earned on Business or First Class flights within Lufthansa Group only.

How do you earn the points which would qualify you for a certain status level? Since the program change, the points are calculated based on the cabin class (economy, premium economy, business, first) and on the fact whether the flight was continental or intercontinental (flights from Europe to Nothern Africa, like to Marocco, Algeria, Tunisia etc.) are counted as continental flights.

Here is an example:

If you fly from Frankfurt to Cairo (counts as continental flight), and you take Air Egypt (member of Star Alliance) or Lufthansa, you’ll earn the following points per flight segment (whether premium economy or First are really offered on this flight, does not really matter, as you would not earn more than with the lower classes – economy instead of premium economy or business instead of First):

If you fly from Zurich to Singapore either on SWISS or Singapore Airlines, your earnings would look like as follows:

Flight with	Cabin class	Points	Qualifying Points	HON Circle Points
SWISS	Economy Premium economy Business First	60 80 200 300	60 80 200 300	200 300
Singapore Airlines	Economy Premium economy Business First	60 80 200 300	– – – –	– –

Let’s assume, you fly from Zurich to Singapore several times a year in premium economy. For every return trip you earn 160 Points and Qualifying Points. To reach just the first status level (Frequent Traveller) you would need to have at least 5 return trips on direct flights (160 x 5 = 800 Points) and at least 3 of them on SWISS (160 x 3 = 420 Qualifying Points) as Singapore Airlines does not bring you any Qualifying Points in the program.

In order to reach Senator status, you would need already 13 intercontinental flights in premium economy (160 x 13 = 2080 Points) and at least 7 of them on the airlines of the Lufthansa Group (160 x 7 = 1120 Qualifying Points).

Surely, by taking connecting flights you can improve (=reduce) the number of required trips. But overall, the conditions to reach the status got significantly worse since the recent program facelifting.

And remember what we mentioned in our introduction article: you do not have to use the loyalty program of your domestic airline. Any program within Star Alliance can bring you to the alliance-wide silver or gold level. We’ll analyze alternatives to Miles and more in future articles about the travel programs.

Let’s now have a quick look at the award part of the program.

The recent changes caused that award miles can be calculated twofold: either based on the purchase price (Lufthansa Group) or still with the old approach (distance x factor of the booking class for intercontinental flights or fixed miles depending on the booked class for continental flights) with other airlines of Star Alliance. It is important how you book your ticket. If you book the flight ticket via a booking system of the Lufthansa Group, your award miles will be calculated in any case based on the ticket price.

Overall, the changes were rather negative compared to the previous rules regarding the miles earned per flight. At the same time, Miles and more are switching to a flexible award model, which means that instead of fixed award miles amounts for a ticket depending on the distance (from which region to which region) the required amount of award miles for an award ticket will fluctuate like the price in fiat currency. Sweet spots for award tickets are vanishing herewith. Here again – you can simply switch to other programs within Star Alliance which can help you to reach the desired status or sufficient miles for an award ticket faster.

The Miles and more program with its current conditions can still be interesting mainly for customers from the home countries of the Lufthansa Group (like Germany, Switzerland or Austria). In these countries you have many different options to earn award miles without flying, by shopping, subscribing to magazines, using credit cards etc.

In a short blog article, it is possible to show just a general view on the program. If you wish to learn more about its conditions and especially its interesting alternatives, Singabiz and its representatives will be happy to arrange a consultation session with you. Feel free to contact us as needed or to book a consultation here.