After years of flying between Copenhagen, Malta, Paris, and Frankfurt, I’ve accumulated a small mountain of airline miles across several programs without ever quite knowing what to do with them. Miles & More is the program where my Lufthansa, SWISS, and Brussels Airlines flights have been quietly racking up points for over a decade.
The Miles & More app makes it easy to check the balance, but actually turning those miles into something useful — a flight, an upgrade, a hotel night — is consistently the hard part. That tension between “I’ve earned them, I should use them” and “I tried to book a Lufthansa flight to Bangkok in business class and the award seat doesn’t exist on any date that works” is the central reality of every major airline loyalty program in 2026.
Miles & More went through its biggest overhaul in years on 1 January 2024, when Lufthansa replaced the old miles-based status system with a Points and Qualifying Points structure. Status is now determined by your travel class and whether each flight is continental or intercontinental, rather than the old system that depended on fare-class multipliers and ticket price.
A 2025 Marriott Bonvoy partnership added another way to earn Points without flying, and the partner network has been refined as airlines have joined and left the Star Alliance ecosystem — most notably SAS, which left Star Alliance and joined SkyTeam on 1 September 2024 and is no longer a Miles & More partner.
This Locals Insider review covers how Miles & More actually works in 2026, the post-2024 status system, where points deliver real value (and where they don’t), our honest experience with airline loyalty in general, and the alternatives worth comparing.
What is Miles & More
Miles & More is the Lufthansa Group’s loyalty program, launched in 1993 and now the largest frequent flyer program in Europe with around 36 million members. You earn miles and points by flying with Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, ITA Airways, LOT Polish Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings, Luxair, plus the broader Star Alliance network and a handful of non-alliance partners.
You can also earn through hotel stays (now including Marriott Bonvoy as of the 2025 partnership), car rentals, the Worldshop, and Miles & More co-branded credit cards.
The easiest way to track your account is through the Miles & More app, which is free to download on the App Store and Google Play Store.
There are also several Miles & More credit cards depending on your region. In the United States, Barclays issues the Miles & More World Elite Mastercard, with welcome bonuses up to 70,000 miles plus the option to convert spending miles into Points and Qualifying Points (which is how some US-based members reach status without flying as much).
In Europe, Deutsche Bank’s Miles & More credit cards are the most widely used, with Lufthansa-themed variants offering bonus miles on Lufthansa Group airline purchases.
How Does Miles & More Rewards Work?
The program operates on three parallel currencies, which can be confusing at first but make sense once you understand the structure.
Award Miles are what you redeem for flights, upgrades, hotel nights, and merchandise. These are earned on flights, credit card spending, hotel stays, partner shopping, and Marriott Bonvoy stays. Award miles expire after 36 months unless you have status or hold an active Miles & More credit card.
Points are what determine your status (Frequent Traveler, Senator, HON Circle). These are earned only on flights with airlines that participate in the program — which means all Star Alliance carriers plus integrated Miles & More partners.
Qualifying Points are a subset of Points earned only on Lufthansa Group airlines and fully integrated Miles & More partners (Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, ITA Airways, LOT Polish Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings, Luxair). To achieve any status, you need both a minimum number of Points and a minimum number of Qualifying Points within a calendar year.
The number of Points earned per flight depends on travel class and whether the flight is continental or intercontinental:
| Flight Type | Economy | Premium Economy | Business | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continental | 20 | 20 | 40 | 40 |
| Intercontinental | 60 | 80 | 200 | 400 |
You earn the same number of Points, Qualifying Points, and HON Circle Points per eligible flight segment, though some flights don’t qualify for all three categories.
How to Use Miles & More
Here’s how a typical flow plays out — booking a Lufthansa flight and claiming the miles after travel:
- Before booking, sign in to your Miles & More account via the app or website so your member number is attached to the reservation automatically. If you book through a travel agent or third-party site, enter your Miles & More number manually in the passenger details.
- Take the flight. If you forget to attach your number, you can submit a retroactive miles claim within 6 months by uploading your boarding pass and ticket receipt in the app under “Mileage credit.” Most claims are processed within 4-8 weeks.
- Check your balance in the app after the flight. Miles typically post within 7-14 days. The app shows your award miles, Points, Qualifying Points, and HON Circle Points separately.
- To redeem, tap “Use miles” in the app and choose your category — award flight, upgrade, hotel stay, car rental, or Worldshop merchandise. For flights, the Lufthansa booking engine shows real-time award availability across partner airlines. For upgrades, you can request an upgrade at the time of booking or close to departure if there’s availability.
- Confirm the redemption. The miles are deducted instantly and you receive a booking confirmation. Some redemptions (like hotel stays through partners) take longer to process.
The whole flow works smoothly when award availability exists. The challenge — covered honestly below — is that for popular destinations and dates, the award seats often don’t.
Status Tiers: Frequent Traveler, Senator, HON Circle
Status determines benefits like extra baggage allowance, lounge access, priority boarding, fast-track security, and bonus miles on every flight. The current thresholds (as of the January 2024 overhaul) are:
Frequent Traveller (Star Alliance Silver): 650 Points + 325 Qualifying Points per calendar year. Benefits include 50% bonus award miles on flights, priority check-in, extra baggage allowance, and lounge access on Lufthansa Group flights with a paid Business Class ticket.
Senator (Star Alliance Gold): 2,000 Points + 1,000 Qualifying Points per calendar year. All Frequent Traveller benefits plus Senator and Star Alliance Gold lounge access worldwide, priority boarding on all Star Alliance carriers, additional baggage allowance, and upgrade vouchers.
HON Circle Member: 6,000 HON Circle Points per calendar year. The exclusive top tier, earned through business and first-class travel on Lufthansa Group airlines. Benefits include private limousine transfers, dedicated HON Circle Lounges, guaranteed seat availability on full flights, and personal travel concierge service.
A notable change in 2024: status is now valid for a minimum of one year plus the period until the end of February in the year after next. If you qualify in May 2024, your status is valid until end of February 2026 — significantly more generous than the old strict-calendar-year system. If you don’t requalify, you drop one tier (Senator becomes Frequent Traveller, for example).
The Marriott Bonvoy partnership added in 2025 lets linked-account members earn up to 120 Points per year toward elite status by staying at qualifying Marriott properties (40 Points per qualifying 1-night stay, capped at 3 stays annually).
Partner Airlines
Miles & More currently has around 35 airline partners, plus dozens of additional partners across hotels, car rentals, shopping, dining, and finance — bringing the total to approximately 67 partner brands. The airlines you can earn and redeem with include:
Aegean, Air Astana, Air Canada, Air China, Air Dolomiti, Air India, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Avianca, Brussels Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, Discover Airlines, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, Eurowings, EVA Air, ITA Airways, LATAM Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Luxair, Olympic Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAP Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United.
Notable absence in 2026: SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) left Star Alliance and joined SkyTeam on 1 September 2024. If you previously earned Miles & More points on SAS flights, those flights no longer qualify. SAS now uses its own EuroBonus program, which is part of the SkyTeam network alongside Air France, KLM, Delta, and Korean Air.
This shift is worth knowing about because many travelers in Scandinavia, Northern Europe, and beyond have moved their primary loyalty from Miles & More to either EuroBonus or Flying Blue depending on their typical routes.
What is the Value of Miles & More Points?
The value of Miles & More points depends entirely on how you redeem them. Different redemption categories deliver very different value per mile:
Merchandise (Worldshop) and lifestyle redemptions typically offer the lowest value — roughly $5-10 per 1,000 miles. This is where many casual members end up using their miles by default, but it’s the worst use of them.
Economy award flights on short and medium-haul routes sit at the lower-middle end — around $10-15 per 1,000 miles. Useful for off-peak travel where the cash fare is moderate, but rarely a great deal.
Business class on intercontinental routes is where Miles & More miles genuinely shine — sometimes $30-50 per 1,000 miles in equivalent cash value. A Frankfurt to Singapore business class redemption that would cost €4,000-6,000 in cash might be available for 105,000 miles plus taxes — strong value if you can find the award seat.
First class redemptions on Lufthansa or partner airlines can deliver the highest theoretical value — sometimes $80-100 per 1,000 miles — but availability is famously scarce and most first-class award seats only open up within a few weeks of departure.
Miles & More provides a points calculator on its website to estimate redemption value for specific destinations and travel classes, but the honest reality is that real-world award availability is often the limiting factor, not the points balance itself.
Reviews & Our Personal Take
The Miles & More app itself is well-rated:
- App Store rating: 4.5/5.0 (around 1,700 reviews)
- Google Play Store rating: 3.2/5.0 (around 19,100 reviews)
The disparity between iOS and Android ratings is unusual but consistent across many travel apps — Android user bases tend to be more critical of bugs and update issues. The most common positive feedback praises the integrated credit card management (Deutsche Bank or Barclays cards can be added to the same app), real-time mile tracking, and a streamlined Worldshop interface.
A representative Google Play Store review reads: “Easy and user-friendly. It’s perfect if you compare this app to the old one. Now you have the Miles & More shop and your credit card in one app — no more switching between apps” — John Adams-Bryan.
Common complaints across both stores include occasional sync issues between flight bookings and mileage credits, the difficulty of finding business and first-class award availability on popular routes, and the booking interface not always showing partner airline awards clearly.
The honest editorial reality from the Locals Insider team: we don’t typically use airline loyalty miles much, and Miles & More is a good example of why. Award flights on the destinations and dates that matter are often unavailable, business class redemptions on popular long-haul routes are particularly hard to find, and the gap between “I have a million miles in my account” and “I can actually use them to fly somewhere I want” can be frustratingly wide. Most points get spent on small, lower-value redemptions almost by default — which is exactly how the airline loyalty business model is designed to work.
A small but representative example: I recently used 6,000 loyalty points for in-flight WiFi and an onboard shop purchase on an SAS flight, getting about a $15 discount. Useful, but a long way from the marketing imagery of free business class tickets to Tokyo. To be transparent, that specific redemption was through EuroBonus (SAS’s own loyalty program, now SkyTeam-affiliated since September 2024), not Miles & More.
However, the pattern is universal across loyalty programs: most members redeem small amounts for low-value items because high-value redemptions, such as premium long-haul award flights, are too scarce to secure.
Locals Insider tip: If you fly Lufthansa Group airlines regularly, attach your Miles & More number to every booking anyway — the miles accumulate passively and cost nothing extra. Where the program genuinely earns its keep is in airport lounge access (Senator and HON Circle members), priority boarding, and extra baggage on long-haul trips. The real value of mid and high-tier status isn’t in eventually redeeming a business class ticket — it’s in making every flight you pay for noticeably more comfortable.
Miles & More’s Pros and Cons
The strengths: the largest frequent flyer program in Europe with 35+ airline partners across Star Alliance, simplified Points-based status system since January 2024, valid status period extended to roughly 1.5 years (significantly more generous than before), Marriott Bonvoy partnership now adds non-flying paths to status, Worldshop and credit card consolidation in the app, strong lounge network for Senator and HON Circle members, miles don’t expire if you hold status or an active Miles & More credit card.
The trade-offs: award seat availability for popular routes and dates is consistently scarce, business and first-class redemptions hardest to find for the routes that matter most, the points system is more complex than competitors (three currencies to track), Worldshop redemptions deliver poor value, lower-tier Frequent Traveller status benefits are modest compared to Senator, no easy transfer partners for buying miles efficiently (unlike Avios via Amex Membership Rewards), and the Android app rating reflects ongoing technical issues that the higher iOS rating obscures.
Alternatives to Miles & More? Consider Avios
Avios is the best-known alternative to Miles & More and remains a strong rewards program if you frequently fly with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Vueling, Finnair, Qatar Airways, or Loganair. The Avios currency is owned and operated by IAG Loyalty (a subsidiary of International Airlines Group), not by British Airways directly.
Originally founded as Air Miles in 1988 and rebranded Avios in 2011, the program now has around 70 million members worldwide. The Avios airline network is narrower than Miles & More, but the redemption flexibility within that network is often better — Avios works particularly well for short-haul European routes where it can offer good value per point.
For travelers based in Scandinavia, the UK, or anyone flying SAS regularly, EuroBonus has become the more relevant program since SAS left Star Alliance for SkyTeam in September 2024. EuroBonus points can now be earned and redeemed across the SkyTeam network including Air France, KLM, Delta, and Korean Air, alongside SAS itself. The redemption options include SAS in-flight WiFi from just 1,000 points, the EuroBonus Shop, hotel stays through 250,000+ partner properties, and flight upgrades.
The right choice depends on which airlines you actually fly. If your typical routes are on Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, or Star Alliance carriers like United, Air Canada, ANA, or Singapore Airlines, Miles & More is the natural fit. Avios makes more sense for travelers who mainly fly British Airways, Iberia, or other OneWorld airlines. Meanwhile, EuroBonus is the obvious choice for those based in the Nordic region or flying SAS regularly.
Many frequent travelers eventually maintain accounts in multiple programs and credit each flight to whichever program offers the best value for that specific airline.
For more on getting the most out of travel, you might find our best travel apps roundup, our guide to the travel accessories for long-haul flights, and our 12 cool travel gadgets list useful starting points.
