Miles&More Sweet Spots From 2021 – Senator for €1,500 & HON for €5,000?

Lufthansa Lounge New York JFK Eingang

After the recent announcements by Miles&More about their changes from 2021 on, there has been a lot of discussion about that. Will it be easier or harder for you to earn a status from 2021? Of course, there is no general answer to that. It really depends on your flight profile. There will be some winners and some losers, like always. The discussion also quickly went into a direction on how to optimize routings, so that you can earn a status very easily.

To cut the story short: There are several sweet spots that will make it very easy or cheap to achieve the Senator and HON status levels. Getting a Senator status for €1,500? Or a HON status for €5,000? Yes, that may indeed be possible from 2021. Continue reading to find out more about that.

What are the Sweet Spots of the new Miles&More System?

The new system is based on points that you will receive depending on which cabin class you are travelling in. Additionally, point amounts are based on whether your flight is a continental or intercontinental flight. More information on the new system can be found in the following article:

The distance between the two cities you are travelling from and to doesn’t matter anymore. Of course this gives us a lot of possibilities for sweet spots. Here’s the points table with the new system:

Cabin classContinentalIntercontinental
Economy Class515
Premium Economy520
Business Class1050
First Class1070

The status levels can be reached the following way:

  • Frequent Traveller: 160 points, of which 50% have to be qualifying points
  • Senator: 480points, of which 50% have to be qualifying points
  • HON Circle: 1,500 points, of which 100% have to be qualifying points

Are there countries that are close to each other but are on different continents according to the new Miles&More system? And do some of these countries have a national carrier that is part of Star Alliance? Short answer: Yes, there are a few countries that fall into this category.

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Please note: If you are checking the map in full resolution and you hoover over your mouse cursor on specific countries, the name of that particular country will appear as a tooltip. In this article we are describing the continents according to the new Miles&More system much more in depth:

1. Continent-Triangle Europe, Africa & Asia

A very interesting sweet spot is the area around the Middle Eastern countries as three different continents are very close to each other according to the new Miles&More system. The following countries are specifically very interesting for us:

EuropeAfricaAsia
TurkeyTunisia, Egypt, MaroccoIsrael, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates

It makes sense to try to connect all three continents within one trip. To achieve this, Egyptair and Turkish Airlines, and how their flights are being routed, will be very useful. Here are a few examples:

From Tunis to Sharjah (Dubai) via Istanbul With Turkish Airlines

A good connection seems to be the flight with Turkish Airlines from Tunis in Tunisia to Sharjah (Dubai) via Istanbul. This way you connect all three continents therefore earn 2x 50 Points per one-way. That makes 200 points for a roundtrip for a price of €730 (€3.65 per point).

From Istanbul to Beirut via Cairo With Egyptair

The same idea applies here: We are trying to connect all three continents with a flight. With the routing of Egyptair from Istanbul to Beirut via Cairo we achieve that and therefore would collect 200 points for US$848 (~€784) (US$4.24 per point) in business class.

From Cairo to Beirut With Egyptair

Of course, simple intercontinental flights that just connect two of the three continents work as well. For example a business class flight from Cairo to Beirut with Egyptair. You would be able to collect 100 points for the price of €375 (€3.75 per point).

No direct-turnaround flights are possible with this fare.

From Cyprus to Beirut & Tel-Aviv With Aegean in Economy Class

Flights with Aegean from Lanarca in Cyprus to Beirut & Tel-Aviv are a pretty nice sweet spot too. The flights in economy class only cost €90-100 and will accrue 30 points (from €3.00 per point).

2. Reasonable Intercontinental Flights in Business Class

With the new system, it will also be possible to just book cheap intercontinental business class fares to accrue enough points. Since the booking class doesn’t matter anymore, you can book the cheapest flights in your preferred cabin class. However, international direct-turnaround flights in booking class D won’t exist as a sweet spot anymore. But here are some good examples of intercontinental flights that generate lots of points for little money:

From Düsseldorf to Tunis via Frankfurt With Lufthansa

This flight would be the perfect positioning flight for our above example from Tunis to Schardscha (Dubai). The flight from Dusseldorf via Frankfurt to Tunis in business would cost €415 and would get you 120 points (€3.96 per point).

From Copenhagen to Marrakesh via Munich/Frankfurt With Lufthansa

A quite reasonable fare is also offered from Copenagen via Munich/Frankfurt to Marrakesch. If you are living in North Germany, the flight is easy to catch respectively it will be easy to get to Copenahgen. If you are living anywhere else in Germany, you will have to book another feeder flight and also need to calculate that in into your overall costs. Also don’t make the connection too tight, as sometims a delay can cause you to miss your connecting flight (on a different ticket). Anyway, the discussed flight costs €366 in business class and generates 120 points (€3.05 per point).

3. Flights Between North America/Caribbeans/Central America & South America

Flights with COPA from Central America to South America will most probably be very profitable in terms of status points. Here are two examples:

From Bogotá via Panama City to Lima With COPA

Again, we are using the short distance of two continents to our advantage. We have found a few nice COPA connections, however the flight from Bogota via Panama City to Lima looked like the best deal at the moment. In business class it costs €584 and will get you 200 points. The ratio is the best we have seen so far with €2.92 per point.

From Panama City to Medellín With COPA

The price of €502 for 100 points (€5.02 per point) is not the best we have seen yet but if you are anyway in Medellin or Panama City, you can use this flight in business class between the two cities to generate some extra points if needed.

These flights do not work as direct-turnaround flights but there is a small workaround: Flights in the other direction are only slightly more expensive. So at your own risk, you can book a direct-turnaround with two separate tickets.

A few More Sweet Spots

There are even more sweet spots. All flights that involve 3 continents or touch 2 continents on the journey are going to be good deals. For example a flight from Germany to Australia will always touch two different continents (Asia and Australia).

Another pretty nice sweet spot is the following flight:

From Tunis via Zurich to New York With Lufthansa & Air Canada

You can get 220 points for the price of €1,211 with a flight from Tunis via Zurich to New York with Lufthansa and Air Canada. Flight times are not optimal but 220 points and 110 qualifying points included are a steal of a deal if you ask me!

How Much do Frequent Traveller, Senator and HON Cost?

If you wanna qualify for your desired status, you may consider some of the options above, maybe just as a filler towards your 2021 goal(s). You have the following options:

Frequent Traveller status for €765

You can get the Frequent Traveller status with only two flights. You could use the flight from our example above from Dusseldorf via Frankfurt to Tunis for €415 and earn 120 points. You could then get another 40 points easily by flying once within Europe with one layover for about €350 (f.e. from Dusseldorf via Frankfurt to Madrid).

Senator status for €1,464

Of course, the headline is a bit exaggerating. However, it really is possible to achieve the Senator status with just a few of those sweet spot flights. If you had 0 status points and wanted to become a Senator, then one option could be to fly 4x in the business class from Copenhagen via Frankfurt to Marrakesch in a calendar year. At the moment, the flight costs €366. With that you can achieve the Senator level by just traveling that way 4x a year.

HON Circle Member for €4,758

Let’s use the example we have already used in the Senator paragraph. We would need to travel 13x with the exact same routing to achieve the HON Circle Member status. 100% of the points also have to be qualifying, so you can’t use anything else than Lufthansa group or Miles&More airlines to achieve that.

Conclusion

Some of the news and changes are actually pretty positive. Lufthansa definitely followed the idea of making the system easier and the before mentioned sweet spots definitely make it less costly to qualify for a certain status. The losers of the system unfortunately are passengers who prefer to travel in Premium Economy or First Class. The price for what you get will just not be as good anymore as it is now.

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