Using Miles & More miles towards Lufthansa Group flights could have remarkable value if you’re lucky enough to find incredibly user-friendly pricing.

Updated November 18, 2025. The award program finally has a transfer partner! That makes these awards far more accessible, which should benefit more people.

For this post, I’m going to only discuss the redemption portion of the program and not how to obtain elite status.

One bank program finally transfers to Miles & More miles

One of the great ways these days to accrue points in a program quickly is to transfer from a bank program. Prior to November 2025, there was no way to transfer bank points to become Miles & More miles. Not even transfers from Marriott Bonvoy were possible, and that program partners with what feels like every program.

Well, no longer: Rove Miles now transfer to Miles & More. That’s incredible! Why is it so great? Because having the ability to top off your account is great, and you might not need too many miles to book the sweet spot. Points transfer at a 1:1 ratio and should be nearly instant.

Awards can be booked 360 days in advance

One thing I like about award programs is finding plentiful award space far in advance. We are planners and prefer to jump on awards right when they become available. The US-based programs tend to only make awards available 11 months in advance. But with so many members in those programs, award space might disappear as soon as it appears. That’s why it helps using a program that releases space more than 11 months out.

Awards booked with Miles & More miles are available 360 days in advance, which gives plenty of time to jump in before it becomes available to United Airlines members.

Lufthansa Miles & More award cancelation fees

This is the confusing part, as award cancel fees used to be very reasonable. If you attempt to select a business class fare, you’ll see three options available: Basic, Basic Plus, and Flex. If you read the descriptions, you’ll see the following:

• Basic: Rebooking has a 250€ penalty, but cancels are allowed (free)
• Basic Plus: Both rebooking and cancels have a 250€ penalty
• Business Flex: Both rebooking and cancels are allowed (free)

You might think why book Basic Plus when Basic gives more? Isn’t it strange that you pay more to get less? Sure, that’s how booking award flights today feel when compared to a decade ago, but this is different. After seeing another member’s experience of unsuccessfully getting a refund, I’m inclined to think Basic should say “Not allowed”. That’s how the Economy Basic Plus fare is set up.

Not allowing cancelations on award flights is brutal. Just that change alone has negatively impacted my thoughts on the program. Sure, you can pay more in miles to unlock the ability to cancel, but I find it out of line when other programs still have flexibility.

Awards booked with Miles & More miles are a mix of dynamically priced and award charts

Their own flights are dynamically priced

Miles & More used to maintain an award chart but then they took it away in the first half of 2025. Prices now dynamically vary based on… we’re not exactly sure. Most programs vary based on cash price or a combination of distance and airline. With this award program, in general it follows distance, but there are some strange anomalies mixed in.

Let’s start with a simple example. On this day, you’ll see the price from FRA to LAX is set at a certain value regardless of the routing you take. As long as you’re on programs participating in the Miles & More program, that is.

What if you throw in a connection at the start of the journey? Assume you start your journey at CDG and prices jump significantly. And nearly 58,000 miles + 286€ for economy? That’s insulting.

And if you start your journey from Warsaw? You come out ahead (at least in business). Prices for the other cabins are better elsewhere.

This makes the program more similar to Air France/KLM Flying Blue, which varies the rate based on your origin and destination. The cheapest routing might not be the most direct.

Don’t book as a roundtrip

The problem with no posted award chart is you have no idea if the results displayed are intended or not. Take the following routing. On May 27, 2026, I can see they want to charge 93,771 miles for the one-way journey. Add in the same 67,526 mile journey back on June 3, 2026.

Want to take a guess what they want to charge for the roundtrip spanning those same dates and same flights? Just 216,174 miles. For anyone not good at math, that’s well more than the sum of the parts. I haven’t checked all routes, but do yourself a favor and check one-way pricing before you consider a roundtrip.

Partner awards still have a chart

At the very least, partner award flights aren’t subject to this volatile pricing. So you might be inclined to use more of your miles on partners. This costs Lufthansa more money (they have to compensate the operating carrier), so I’m not sure why they decided to do this, but we’ll take it.

You can see the results mixed in with Lufthansa Group flights. In some cases, the pricing is cheaper than what you would otherwise spend. For example, Air Canada flights are fixed at 62,500 between the United States and Europe. That’s less than the 67,526 miles for Austrian. And to be honest, 62,500 isn’t a bad price at all to pay for business class–that is, if you ignore the surcharges.

What are the sweet spots?

Dynamic pricing oddities

It’s going to be difficult to generalize this given the dynamic nature of pricing. But so far, San Francisco to London seems to be a good option. There’s this option on Lufthansa for 41,636 Miles & More miles in business class.

Or this one on Swiss for even less! Just 27,916 miles for business class on the same route. Sure, you have to pay $1,073 in taxes and fuel surcharges, but that mileage price is so cheap.

Not looking for business class and instead want economy? How about paying just 90 miles for the journey along with $231.40? Premium economy is an excellent price, but you could get 141 journeys in economy class for the same total points price. Obviously, I don’t think this will last. But it shows that playing around with destinations is going to be a thing people need to do here.

Perhaps there’s just something about London as Los Angeles also shows excellent pricing in economy.

And in business class, which is more attractive than what it once was under the old program.

Pricing varies by day, so going during low season will tend to give better deals. It’s going to take some effort to figure out all the sweet spots, but it’s a game worth exploring if you’re looking to save on miles. But for now, finding good pricing from the west coast of the USA is a win.

The Most Available Method to Book Lufthansa First Class

The one thing I can appreciate is that Lufthansa makes more first class award space available to program members than is made to partners. Previously, you could find first class awards for 91,000 miles one direction (plus $1,083.90 in taxes and carrier-imposed fees). It was a decent rate for Lufthansa First, especially if you could spend time in the wonderful Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. But, yes, the award fees are painful.

What about now? Again, pricing depends on routing, but it looks like pricing jumped nearly 50%(!) in this one example. Would you pay 135,338 Miles & More miles for first class? That’s nearly 80,000 miles as a surcharge over business class. That differential over business is perhaps the most painful part. You’re already getting lounge access and a lie-flat seat in that cabin, so the surcharge doesn’t make sense to me.

Every program has devalued first class awards significantly in recent years, so this continues the trend. Maybe at some point the pricing gets adjusted if seats go out empty, but I have to think it’s here to stay.

The only way to potentially book Swiss First with miles

Since we’re talking about Lufthansa First, we should also briefly mention Swiss First. Like Lufthansa, Swiss tries to protect the integrity of their first class cabin by not making it easy to book them. However, the important distinction is that you’ll need Senator elite status to book Swiss First. Hiding the cabin for only their loyal members makes it hard to book.

But once you have Senator elite status, can you just go to their site to find award pricing? Nope. You’re not going to find anything. If you want to book Swiss First with Miles & More miles, you’re going to have to call the Senator phone line and chat with an agent. Come prepared with a list of possible award dates that work.

Pricing is Even Better for Children

Let’s take the First class flight example above and assume you want to roll with two parents and two children. Lufthansa Miles and More, similar to Air France, offers a 25% discount on award flights for children aged 2-11. That takes the mileage rate from 135,338 miles per adult down to 101,502 miles per child. Anything to help offset the price of flights for families. I’m glad that the discount applies regardless of cabin.

Infant awards are 10% of the points price

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

Thankfully, infants cost just 10% of the miles price. So bringing your lap infant along with you in Lufthansa first class doesn’t have to cost that much extra.

How to Best Search for Availability?

In general, it’s good enough to go search the Lufthansa Miles & More website itself and play around with a range of dates that I think make sense. The website isn’t that useful in flushing out premium awards since it just shows the lowest price available on a given day. However, if you’re interested in those abnormally-priced awards, the most reliable method of uncovering them is just to take a look at their site and search for awards yourself.

Up until this point, not many tools allow for ease of searching for award pricing bookable through Miles & More simply because it didn’t have transfer partners until now. So, not many paid attention to it. We expect that to change soon.

Do Miles & More miles expire?

Officially, yes, miles do expire after 36 years, so you don’t want to sit on your miles for too long. However, if you have the qualifying credit card and make a purchase on that card monthly, your miles will not expire even past the 36 month deadline. I have the Lufthansa Miles & More credit card (not a referral link) and can confirm that my miles have not expired. All I do is make a small automatic donation to a worthy cause monthly and my miles are indefinitely extended.

Children under the age of 18 will not have their miles expire due to the “JetFriends” program. It’s unclear to me if those miles suddenly expire once the child turns 18 or if there is a grace period to use them before they expire.

Earning and burning is a better strategy, especially if you’re buying miles, but it’s good to know there is some flexibility (by opening a credit card) if your plans change.

Can Miles & More miles be pooled between accounts?

The official answer is yes, but I believe it only works for accounts based in Germany. And even then, I’ve heard reports of the process not working properly. I’ve never gotten it to work for me (for what it’s worth, I did not use an address based in Germany for my account). It would have been nice to pool miles since both Jenn and I have earned miles with our own sign-up bonuses for the Lufthansa Miles & More credit cards and I’d prefer not to have to maintain more than one account.

Do you like to collect Miles & More miles, especially in light of program changes?

Suggested reading:

• Exploring Hamburg with a Family
• Enjoying the Hamburg Christmas Market
• Taking the Train in Germany with Kids