Lufthansa Miles & More will introduce mileage pooling for families starting in May. I’m excited about this for one reason in particular.
Joining the ranks of ANA, Asiana, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad, JAL, and Qantas (and JetBlue and Hawaiian in the USA), Lufthansa will allow you to freely combine award miles for members of the same household.
According to a press release (in German), up to two adults and five children registered at the same address will be eligible to pool miles.
Status miles cannot be combined: only award/redemption miles.
Why I Am Excited
Lufthansa does not sell miles. Thus, there are only two (relatively) easy ways to earn miles other than flying: via Starwood Preferred Guest or via a Lufthansa-branded credit.
The Lufthansa Miles & More Premier World Mastercard from Barclays offers a 50,000 mile sign-up bonus. That’s great for a one-way ticket to Europe in business class (52.5K miles) or a few one-way premium cabin tickets on United within the Lower 48 (17K miles). But if you’re looking for a first class or multi-region award, you’re looking at a lot of spending on the card.
With the ability to pool, you can combine the sign-up bonuses of, say, four family members to earn enough points for two return tickets to Europe in business class or a pair of one-way first class tickets to Asia.
That’s valuable because Lufthansa offers additional award space in all cabins to its own members. Miles & More is also the only program that consistently offers Lufthansa First Class bookings in advance.
CONCLUSION
Miles & More is not one of the more valuable loyalty programs. Nevertheless, its sweet spots and enhanced award inventory make it attractive. Family accounts will make the program even more attractive. Let’s hope that this new benefit does not come with a corresponding award chart devaluation.
(H/T YHBU / image: Lufthansa)
Don’t get overexcited. I suspect that we see further enhancements (read devaluations) coming in/around September. Notably changes to the ways you can earn status. Those would be effective Jan ’19.
In Germany where registration of residence is mandatory, there is an easy paper trail to determine whether a person actually lives in a certain household. I wonder if and how LH will verify such details for international customers who may not have “German quality” evidence of their household.
Qantas doesn’t offer family pooling. Virgin Australia’s Velocity program does though, including pooling of Status Credits.
Actually Chris I believe Qantas does offer family pooling as I’ve been able to transfer my points to my husband’s account previously.
Transfers are definitely possible (I’ve taken advantage of them myself), but that’s very different from pooling. Pooling is automatic and features no limitations involving transfer size, maximum points transferred per year or maximum number of transfers per year.
Qantas Family Transfers feature limitations in all of these regards. The only “proper” pooling program I’ve seen is Virgin Australia’s Velocity program – both points and status credits are credited directly to the beneficiary’s account.
And whose definition of pooling is that?