A LoyaltyLobby reader from Taiwan sent us a question regarding Lufthansa Miles&More’s refusal to extend expiring miles.
Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll try to cover them here several times a week.
You can access Lufthansa Miles&More here.
Email From The Reader:
I decided to write an email to you asking for some help regarding the expiration of miles of M&M (Lufthansa).
In January, I received a message from Lufthansa saying the the miles in the account will expire on the 31st of March. The amount is pretty huge, about 560000 miles around.
My base is in Taiwan, due to cov-19, the country has had a lockdown policy immediately since the outbreak. The travel ban has been set since two years ago. Currently Taiwan is still in lockdown.
Yesterday, I got the reply after 3 emails to the service center, and various call to Taiwan and Germany miles and more service centers.
They refused my request for the extension and I felt so angry and disappointed, truth be told. The reality on this island is different from Europe where they can travel easily, we do not have the possibility to travel in such a pandemic period. They ignored this reality and kept on doing their existing policy for status.
Kindly could you advise if there is another solution to keep the miles?
The Reply that the reader received from Miles&More:
We were also touched with their press department that sent us a similar reply:
As we all know, air traffic and the travel industry have been affected by the current situation on an unprecedented scale, and with it all travellers. We are aware that the current situation makes it difficult to redeem miles for flight awards. As our focus is on customer centricity, we are doing our best to adapt our services and offers to the circumstances.
Important to know: All Miles & More flight award tickets can still be rebooked as often as desired before the start of the journey. You can find more information at https://www.miles-and-more.com/de/en/general-information/mmg-customer-service.html.
As Miles & More has long been much more than a frequent flyer programme, we also offer many alternative ways to redeem miles, i.e. with more than 270 connected partners beyond aviation. These include companies from a wide range of sectors such as hotels, mobility, entertainment, shopping, finance and conversions.
In order to extend the mileage validity, we can offer Yu Hung Tang to use the feature “Extend miles”. With Mileage Services by Loylogic – Extend Miles, the validity of expiring award miles can be extended for at least another 36 months for a transaction fee.
Please find more information at https://milesandmore.loylogic.com/ and https://milesandmore.loylogic.com/faq.
What can the reader do?
1. You can extend the miles, but it is expensive
2. You can use the miles for merchandise at a bad value
3. You can use the miles for award flights in 2023, hoping to be able to change these then or take the flights
Considering the number of miles that the reader has, I would book a few business and/or first-class flights for January 2023.
The reader should change the flights before the flight dates and book something else. This should, at least in theory, extend the miles until the end of March 2023, although there have been contradictory experiences as of late.
We wrote about another reader’s case about expiring Miles&More miles:
Reader Email: Lufthansa Miles&More Doesn’t Follow Its Own Miles Expiration Policy
I redeemed for towards an Apple gift card:
Check Your Loyalty Program Accounts For December 31 Expiring Points & Miles!
Conclusion
I hate programs that have a hard expiry date of miles. However, to my understanding, Miles&More won’t expire miles only from members who have their co-branded credit cards.
The reader should not let these miles expire. You can redeem for at least four to six long-haul business class flights + perhaps some First thrown in too.
It probably would be the best idea to cancel over the phone and rebook the wanted itinerary immediately so that there wouldn’t be the expiry issue that other reader faced on the case we previously covered.
There is no excuse for Lufthansa Miles&More not to extend miles expiry for members in markets that are still not allowed to travel freely. They certainly can do better.
