Update 6/30/2014: The current welcome bonus has been reduced to 35,000 miles. All links in this post go to the following offer:
Application Link: Miles & More® Premier World MasterCard®
- Earn 20,000 award miles after your first purchase or balance transfer
- Earn up to 15,000 award miles with balance transfers (1 mile per $1 transferred) within 30 days of account opening
- Earn 2 award miles per $1 on ticket purchases directly from Miles & More integrated airline partners
- Earn 1 mile per $1 on all other purchases
- Annual Companion Ticket after first purchase
- No foreign transaction fees on purchases made outside the U.S.
- Redeem miles for flight awards and upgrades on Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SWISS, Star Alliance airlines and other partners
- $79 Annual Fee, waived for SEN and HON Circle Members
The 50,000 mile Lufthansa Miles & More® Premier World MasterCard® offer is currently one of the best airline credit card offers available. It’s one of the few welcome bonuses that is worth a roundtrip flight to Europe from the US. Since it’s a valuable recurring offer I’m updating and adding more info to this series that will cover the basics of the Miles & More frequent flyer program and using Lufthansa miles.
[The current 50k offer is a limited time offer and published to end on June 30, 2014. As always, if you decide to apply for the credit card through my links the support is greatly appreciated!]
Lufthansa Miles & More Basics Series
Part 1: The Program and Award Chart
Part 2: Best Ways to Earn Lufthansa Miles
Part 3: 10 Great Uses of Lufthansa Miles
Part 4: Stopover & Open Jaw Rules
Part 5: How to Book Awards
Part 6: Maximizing the 3 Region Award Chart
Part 7: How to Avoid Paying High Fuel Surcharges
Who You can Fly With
With Lufthansa Miles & More miles you can book award flights on any of the Star Alliance partner airlines as well as Miles & More partners.
Star Alliance is the largest airline alliance and includes valuable partner airlines such as United, ANA, Thai, Turkish Airlines, Copa, and Singapore Airlines. A great way to see where they fly is by taking a look at the Star Alliance route map and this can give you a great idea of all the places you can fly with Lufthansa miles.
Star Alliance partner airlines:
- Adria Airways
- Aegean Airlines
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air New Zealand
- ANA
- Asiana Airlines
- Austrian
- Avianca
- Brussels Airlines
- Copa Airlines
- Croatia Airlines
- EGYPTAIR
- Ethiopian Airlines
- EVA Air
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Scandinavian Airlines
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- SWISS
- TAP Portugal
- THAI
- Turkish Airlines
- United
You can also book on any of the 9 Miles & More partner airlines which include:
- Adria Airways
- Air Dolomiti
- Austrian Airlines
- Brussels Airlines
- Croatia Airlines
- Lufthansa
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Luxair
- Swiss International Air Lines
Book Awards Online
You can only book awards online for Miles & More partners, including Adria Airways, Austrian Airlines Group, Brussels Airlines, Condor (Economy only), Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa and SWISS which means that for any other airlines you will have to call the reservation line.
To book awards online you will first need to log in to your Miles & More account and then search for awards by clicking on ‘Find Award’ from the homepage.
As a Miles & More member you will get better access to awards on Miles & More partner airlines rather than if you are just a Star Alliance member, so the best option to find seats is to search online or by calling in over the phone.
You will need to have miles in your Miles & More account to have access to award searches online, but you can always call in an search for award availability over the phone.
Book Awards by Phone
To book awards on any Star Alliance partner airlines and awards that include stopovers you will need to call in to the Milse & More service desk to make an award reservation over the phone.
Miles & More service desk: 800-581-6400
Luckily, Miles & More does not have a fee to book awards over the phone, so you can call in to book awards on any Star Alliance airlines for free. You will also need to call into book awards with any stopovers.
An easy way to find award seat availability on Star Alliance flights is by using the award search tool on other Star Alliance partner airlines’ website.
Some of the most useful and accurate Star Alliance partner airline websites to use include United, ANA, Air Canada or Aviana. United.com is a good place to start and one of the easiest website sites to use and navigate.
Once you find a flight that you want that has award availability on one of these Star Alliance airline’s website, take note of the flight numbers. Once you have the flight info, you can call into the Lufthansa Miles & More service center and have the agent book an award on those flights.
Star Alliance airlines have various amounts of access to award seats that they can make available, so this is a good place to start when you want to know what airline you can fly on. But, you can also just call directly into Miles & More and ask to search for an award and ask ti know the various airline options you can fly on for those dates.
Quick Recap
You can use Miles & More miles to fly on any Star Alliance airlines as well as on Miles & More partner airlines. In total you will have access to book flights on 35 airlines.
You can book awards on Miles & More partner airlines online, and have the best access to award seats by searching on their website.
However, to book awards on other Star Alliance airlines you will have to call in and book over the phone without a fee. To find award seat availability you can search on another partner airline’s website and write down the flight information. Then, call into Miles & More and have the agent book an award on those flights. Some of the best sites to use include United, ANA, Avianca, and Air Canada.
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