Miles&More: New Status Program with Points Will Start in 2024

Lufthansa Group Boeing 787

As announced in 2019, Miles&More actually already wanted to give out points instead of status miles in 2021, but the change was postponed due to Covid. Miles&More has now officially announced that the new system will start on January 1, 2024. We have summarized all changes for you!

Points Replace Status Miles

Currently, you have to earn a certain number of status miles with Miles&More to become a Frequent Traveller or Senator. How many status miles you get for a flight depends, among other things, on the distance and the booking class. This will be much clearer for flights from January 1, 2024. All that will matter is whether it is a continental or intercontinental flight and in which travel class it takes place. The booking class doesn’t matter at all (although there are certainly some exceptions, e.g. for award flights).

Travel classContinentalIntercontinental
Economy Class2060
Premium Economy2080
Business Class40200
First Class40300

Whether a flight is considered continental or intercontinental depends on the six continents defined by Miles&More. The country table (which has unfortunately not yet been published in the 2024 version) can be used to quickly understand this.

However, Miles&More has fixed a sweet spot compared to the initial 2019 announcement: Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are now assigned to Europe. A trip to North Africa is no longer suitable as a quick mileage run.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a new country table so far, but based on the table from 2019 and the changes in North Africa, the following breakdown emerges:

Points, Qualifying Points & HON Circle Points

Points are awarded for every flight on Star Alliance and Miles&More partner airlines. In order to reach a status with Miles&More, you not only need points, but also a certain number (for FTL & Senator it’s 50% of the points) Qualifying Points, which are only credited in the same amount on flights with direct Miles&More partner airlines.

You can only collect Qualifying Points on flights with the following airlines: Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Eurowings Discover, Air Dolomiti, Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines and Luxair.

In addition, you only collect HON Circle Points on business and first class flights, but these only count towards achieving HON Circle status.

Status Requirements

Starting in 2024, your frequent flyer status depends on how many Points, Qualifying Points & HON Circle Points you collect within a calendar year.

You will receive the Frequent Traveller after collecting 650 points, of which at least half (325 qualifying points) must be earned on flights operated by Miles&More partner airlines.

Senator status is awarded after 2,000 points, of which at least half (1,000 qualifying points) must be earned on flights operated by Miles&More partner airlines.

You become a HON Circle Member when you have collected at least 6,000 HON Circle Points within a calendar year. That’s the equivalent of 15 intercontinental round trip flights in business class!

StatusPointsQualifying PointsHON Circle Points
Frequent Traveller650325
Senator2.0001.000
HON Circle6.000

Status Validity

Previously, a Miles&More status was always valid until the remainder of the qualification year + two full calendar years + 2 months until the end of February. Ideally, this resulted in a validity of more than three years.

Now, a status that has been earned will be valid for one year less. So you have to re-qualify every calendar year to keep the status.

However, until the end of 2023, you have another chance to extend your status under the old conditions. If you are in the 2nd full year of your status in 2023 and have not already requalified in 2022, you will receive the status until the end of February 2026. If you are in the 1st year of your status in 2023 (i.e. you first qualified in 2022 or requalified in 2021/2022), you even have the chance to extend your status until the end of February 2027 with a requalification.

Lifetime Status

If you collect at least 30,000 Qualifying Points in your frequent flyer life, you will receive the Frequent Traveller status for life. At 40,000 Qualifying Points, you become Senator for life. Originally, it was said that a Senator lifetime status was only granted if the member had previously held the senator status for 10 years. It remains to be seen whether this restriction will remain in place.

Status Stars points collected so far will be converted 1:2 into Qualifying Points as of December 31, 2023. Frequent flyers with three Status Stars will receive the lifetime Frequent Traveller, and with four or five Status Stars, you become Senator for life.

Examples of Status Qualification

As already mentioned, the qualification will be easier for some, but depending on the flight behaviour, the new system can also be bad news. Here are some examples to show how the change affects different flight behaviours.

Qualification with Segments

Compared to the Frequent Traveller Silver Promotion with 30 Miles&More partner airline flights in one calendar year, you now need a maximum of 33 flights (33 x 20 = 660 points) to reach the Frequent Traveller via segments. On the other hand, only a maximum of 17 flights (17 x 20 = 340 qualifying points) still have to be flown with Miles&More partner airlines. The rest can be completed with other Star Alliance airlines. For every intercontinental flight, you even save 2 more segments.

It is also possible for the first time to qualify for the Senator status via segments. In the past, this was only possible via status miles, which, given 125 miles per segment and a requirement of 100,000 miles, then corresponded to 800 segments (it could hardly be more unrealistic). With the new system, the Senator status is earned after a maximum of 100 segments.

Qualification with Long-haul Economy Class

If you only want to earn the Frequent Traveller status with economy class flights and with as few trips as possible, 4 intercontinental journeys (return with a layover in both directions) + another short segment are now sufficient. It is then possible, e.g. to fly 4 trips to the USA for around €300 each. For comparison: in the old system, you would have earned just under 9,000 of 35,000 miles with 4 trips to the US East Coast (18,000 with Executive Bonus).

Senator status is still difficult to achieve in economy class, as you would have to travel long-distance (with a layover) at least once a month. Nevertheless, this is still more feasible than before, when about 40 long-distance trips were needed.

Qualification in Business Class

With an intercontinental business class flight (round trip with a layover), you get 480 points. That’s more than 70% of the required 650 points for the Frequent Traveller status. In the old system, you only got between 25-40% of the required miles (depending on the distance). Again, the system is an improvement.

Within the same continent, the difference is even greater. If you fly a round trip within Europe with a layover, you get 160 points and thus almost 25% of the points required for the Frequent Traveller status. The previous 2,500 miles were only 7% of the required miles.

Qualification in Premium Economy

The biggest losers from the new system are frequent flyers in premium economy class. Where there used to be four times as many miles than in economy class, the difference is now just 25% (even less if you count the economy class feeder flights).

With a long-distance trip (e.g. to Miami with a layover) you now get 200 points, which corresponds to about 30% of the FTL status. In the past, it would have been over 11,000 miles (even over 14,500 with the Executive Bonus), which corresponds to more than 30% of the miles required.

Even if the difference doesn’t sound extremely negative at first glance, you always have to keep in mind that the status now has to be earned annually instead of every 2 years.

Conclusion

Even if the reduction of status validity to a full calendar year (+ qualification year + 2 months) is a major disadvantage of the new system, the changeover is otherwise to be seen positively. Points that are only dependent on the travel class and continental/intercontinental are much easier to calculate and track than the previous booking class and distance-based system.

At a time when most frequent flyer programs rely on revenue-based awarding of miles and status, it’s great to see Miles&More head in a different direction. This means that price-conscious frequent flyers also have a good chance of earning a status.

Although three years have now passed since the first announcement in 2019, Miles&More has not significantly tightened the conditions of the new system. Although some sweet spots (Northern Africa is considered continental and not intercontinental as announced in 2019) have been removed, the status thresholds have not been significantly raised.

Cover Picture: © Lufthansa

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Comments (9)

  1. Giulio Stix says:

    I have two status stars and I am Senator since 10+ years, will I get any benefit after such a long lasting loyalty?

  2. Ed says:

    “… until the end of 2023, you have another chance to extend your status under the old conditions.”

    Are you absolutely sure this is accurate? If so, I will try to requalify for status this year.

  3. Freek says:

    Hello Ditmar or Johannes,
    Do you know if M&M gives points for status years in prior fqtv programs that were merged into M&M (e.g., SN privilege platinum) in order to get lifetime ftl/sen status?

    Thanks!

    • Ditmar Lange says:

      Hi Freek,
      while I’m not completely sure, I would recommend that you simply check how many status stars points you currently have.
      It’s easiest if you have the app: Once you’re logged in, in the app, go to the account tab (Konto, the second tab from the left) and click on the tiny downward arrow next to your status right at the top. There you’ll see your status star points.

  4. Jones says:

    As you say, the new system can also be bad news. It is bad news for me. I qualify for status through intercontinental business class flights and have silver/FTL with 2 return flights (even in LH/LX’s booking class P!!) in 1 of the 2 year qualification period, i.e. 1 return flight per year on average. With the changes, I will need 1½ return flights per year, which is a 50% increase and I will have to plan some trips carefully so that the outward flight is in 1 calendar year and the return flight is in the next calendar year. What a headache!

    AF/KLM Flying Blue requires 1 return flight per year for silver. Thereafter, they require 2 return flights per year for gold whereas M&M will require 4½ return flights per year for gold/Senator with the same headache for me as above. Also, excess Flying Blue XPs roll-over, excess M&M points do not. So for me, it is bye-bye M&M, hello Flying Blue.

  5. Marco says:

    Hi, where can I check my Status Stars? In the app I can not see this?

    • Ditmar Lange says:

      Once you’re logged in, in the app, go to the account tab (Konto, the second tab from the left) and click on the tiny downward-arrow next to your status right at the top. There you’ll see your status star points.

  6. KAVI says:

    Error in article regarding Status Stars/Lifetime Status: M&M website says 3 Status Stars are enough for Frequent Traveller life time status; 4 or 5 gives Senator: “Conversion rate: one Status Stars point is equivalent to two Qualifying Points. All frequent flyers with four or five Status Stars will thus receive Senator Lifetime status at the beginning of 2024. Those who have achieved three Status Stars by the end of 2023 will be awarded Frequent Traveller Lifetime status.” This is logical because 15000 Status Star points x2 are 30000 Qualifying Points.

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