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Lufthansa is one of the biggest airlines in the world and is a significant player in the global and European aviation market. The airline operates out of several major hubs in Germany, with its main base of operations in Frankfurt.
The Lufthansa Miles & More program has a relatively generous mileage expiration policy, with multiple ways of keeping your miles active. Here is all you need to know about whether Lufthansa miles expire.
Do Lufthansa Miles Expire?
Your Lufthansa Miles & More miles will expire after 36 months from the date they were credited to your account. Per the Miles and More terms and conditions page:
“If miles are not redeemed for an award within 36 months of being applied to the member account (start of the relevant flight, start of the hotel stay, start of car rental, etc.), they will expire at the end of the following quarter, unless a longer expiry period has been announced in the Miles & More communication channels.”
Track your points and miles expiration for 630+ loyalty programs and get email alerts before your miles expire by signing up for a free AwardWallet account.
How To Prevent Lufthansa Miles From Expiring
There are two ways to escape the expiration policy: elite status and credit card spending.
- Your miles will not expire as long as you hold the following elite status with the Miles & More program:
- Frequent Traveller
- Senator
- HON Circle
- If you hold an eligible co-branded credit card, your miles are exempt from the 36-month expiration policy. The card needs to be held for at least three months before miles are set to expire, and you must make at least one transaction per month.
Finally, although buying Lufthansa miles can be a good way to boost your balance, doing so won't prevent your miles from expiring.
Related: How To Book Lufthansa First Class Using Miles
What Are the Co-Branded Credit Card Options With Miles & More?
Luckily, Miles & More has a vast range of options for co-branded credit cards. There are options for residents of most European countries, as well as China, Japan, and India. In the United States, you can prevent your miles from expiring by completing eligible spending on the Miles & More® World Elite Mastercard®.
Use AwardWallet To Track Lufthansa Miles & More Expiration
Although Lufthansa miles expiring after 36 months is a long time, it is sufficiently long that you can lose track of your balance and forget about their expiration dates. That is why it pays to use AwardWallet to keep track of your Lufthansa Miles & More miles. This way, you will receive a timely reminder when miles are set to expire, allowing you to take action and use them before losing them.
To allow AwardWallet to track your Lufthansa miles, simply add your Lufthansa account to AwardWallet and you are set.
Related: How To Track Your Rewards Using AwardWallet
Our Take
Miles & More is the mileage program for Lufthansa, Austrian, Brussels, Eurowings, Swiss, and LOT Polish. Understandably, Miles & More is primarily a European-based reward program. That said, it still has a strong U.S. presence — including a U.S.-issued Lufthansa card. Also, the airline features what is arguably the best first-class product on routes between Europe and the U.S. Not to mention the spectacular first-class terminal in Frankfurt.
It's disappointing that activity doesn't prevent your Lufthansa miles from expiring. If you're a Miles & More collector, make sure to use your miles before 36 months — or utilize one of the options to become exempt from expiration. And don't forget to check out monthly Miles & More Mileage Bargains for great uses of your miles.
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Good to see a wide range of countries with credit cards available.
Miles & More credit cards are available is several countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, USA). Usually, the sign-up bonus offsets the annual fee at least for the first year.
Miles & More award miles do not expire, if the account holder is younger than 18 years. So at least your kids will not lose their miles.
I hope they consider their expiration policy due to COVID.
All airlines should extend their expiration dates to years and not months.
En este contexto de Pandemia no deberían de vencer las millas.
Gracias por manternernos informados respecto los métodos para que las mismas se mantengan vigentes, y en un futuro (esperemos pronto) volver a viajar
After loosing many miles, I just applied with UNITED, a star alliance member and use their program also when flying on Lufthansa.
In these pandemic times where we have had to stay home and reduce trips to minimum expression, it makes sense to extend miles expiration for at least 18 months.
Hope they do the right thing and retire their expiration policy soon!
I had some miles expiring and so I had made request some months ago for a Miles and More credit card.
Now I have it since several months and I don’t have to care about miles expiration.
Of course this imply the cost of this credit card. I don’t know if it’s valuable to continue to have the card even after the pandemic situation.
Moreover, Miles and More didn’t make any action to suspend expiration of miles during this time. Not a customer friendly operation in my opinion.
I’m still surprised any airline has expiring miles still.
It’s actually still much more of a surprise that a few programs now don’t expire their miles. The overwhelming majority of programs still have expiration policies in place.
Miles & More have the worst kind of expiry policy where activity doesn’t extend validity. When it came to near expiry I was able to cash most of mine out for an Amazon voucher. It was extremely poor value, but the miles would have expired otherwise anyway.
With Corona Virus making international travel impossible, it’s nearly impossible to keep the miles from expiring. I wish all airlines make the miles non-expiring.
I wish they would just do away with expiration all together. That is the right thing to do for all loyalty programs.
I personally don’t participate in any frequent flyer scheme which carries an expiry for their miles from earning
The drastic reduction of the LH First Class very much diminishes the appeal of the Miles & More program.
Actually, the bearer of a Lufthansa Miles and More World card by DKB and german resident has no further trouble regarding the expiration of the award miles, as long as he/she spends about €3.000 a year which means 1.500 accrued award miles per year calendar. This way, miles keep on being extended continuously. I never had an issue about the expiration of these miles by paying my expenses with this cobranded credit card.
I like to fly Lufthansa but I don’t like their expiration rules. It’s virtually impossible to hold cards of every airline. Once I forced to spent 30K miles on hotel to prevent their disappearing
Wow, that is beyond lame that mileage activity does NOT extend your points expiration….what a harsh program….even BA isn’t that bad….oh well maybe one day they’ll see the light and go to a more liberal expiration policy.
The “events” in 2020 have drastically reduced the appeal of this program.
I love flying on Lufthansa from DFW to FRA or MUC. I just use my United miles for my wife me. Never had any issues with them. The one time they were late getting into FRA and we had to wait about five hours for their next flight; we got to our destination about six hours late. They compensate each of us just over $600 by check. So, we fly them when we go to Germany, Switzerland or Ireland.
It is such a great post and really helped to clarify a lot of doubts that I had about Lufthansa’s miles program. Thank you AwardWallet.
Luthansa is allied with Air India where I am. AI is a terrible airline and I quit flying it as I was tired of missing connections and such. I switched to One World and have never looked back.
Do you actually want to proactively earn M&M miles if you are not based in Europe?
It depends – study their award chart and see if there are sweet spots for your particular desired destinations.
Do you know if transferring expiring miles to another person via Loylogic will extend their validity? I have about 2000 M&M miles that will expire in March and a friend of mine is short of 2000 miles for a reward. However, due to the uncertainty of current times my friend wants to keep the transferred miles for a while to see how the events will be unfolding instead of spending them straight away.
Transferred miles expire after 36 months, so your friend will definitely have enough time to use them. Keep in mind that you’ll have to pay to transfer the miles – but I see there’s a 20% discount through 31 December using promo code TRXM20.
What is the best way to use 60K X 2 miles (120,000)
for a lie-flat business class flight to Europe (Frankfurt?).
Lufthansa or are their any better deals with their partners?
George, you’re best to ask this question here: https://Award.Travel/101 – in our Faceobook community
I earn milesandmore miles every year or two but i cant ever accrue any meanigful amount as those keep expiring every three years. only way is to get a credit card and i dont want that. other programs allow you to shop online to reset your expiration counter. but not this one. too sad. will donate my expiring miles and avoid getting new ones in the future if i can by switching to another program.
So hard to book reward ticket with them. I don’t fly them anymore.
Very bad program and not jus because of its expiry policy but overall too, look at their fuel surcharge for instance. Unfortunately the brand Lufthansa still has some attraction for newbies in the points game.
few comments from Germany 🙂
LH has a shopping portal – see milesandmore.com
no need to use the LH credit card, (exept the LH white) as long as you pay the fee miles are save.
if you talking about international first: amazing – but from my point of view EK give more “bang” for your bucks….
I have some miles expiring next June.
It’s a pity but maybe it’s better to let some miles expire than use them in a bad way.
There are almost no valid alternatives to reedeming miles for flights.
Then I have much more miles expiring in September and then I think making a reservation for next summer.
Looking into getting a cobrand with them. Waiting for a good offer.
Interesting! I don’t think I have ever seen a program have this type of restriction. Does anyone know how the seats are? My husband hasn’t traveled on them in a long time. Has anyone transferred from UR to Lufthansa? Any problems with losing points, etc.? I’m wondering how the first class is with them? Any thoughts?
well crap my memory is faulty can’t transfer to Lufthansa but can to United. Please anyone remind me when you can book Lufthansa from a United account?
I wish they had a shopping portal too!
If you keep an eye out there are occasional offers to buy Lufthansa points via special promos in your account. The last one was 2000 miles for buying and registering a PAYG sim card, these will keep your accounts alive.
Worldshop is another option to burn your miles if they are going to expire soon
Preventing mileage expiration seems a bit high maintenance if one doesn’t fly LH regularly.
There are not as many options to keep your points from expiring as most programs.
Is 36 month the longest expiration for any major airline points? Except for non expiration points systems
Off the top of my head, I think so.
Transferring SPG points to acquire rewards is worth it. Just have to find the sweet spot in the system. Lufthansa has some great routes from US to Europe hot spots.
I’ve got a M&M Amex which I sometimes don’t use for a month, my miles never expired yet.
I don’t think using it once a month is mandatory.
And, the USA credit card is with Barclay’s (i.e, not Chase!).
Too bad they do not have a shopping portal!
Looks like the credit card is the only way to go – does it have a good sign-on bonus?
Sucks that transferring points from SPG doesn’t count as activity to extend the life!
Wow that mist be almost unique!
Next card on my list.
Same here. My LH FTL (Silver) status expires early 2018 so I want a way to preserve my miles after that…
The M&M VISA sign-up bonus over here is pathetic at the moment (1500 miles…) so I’m waiting to see if that improves before pulling the trigger…
I think its usually a lot more. But never enough which is why I have never applied
Still no replacement M&M credit card for France… makes me sad 🙁
Interesting…I didn’t even know there were M&M credit cards available in the U.S.
Always good to know the options…thanks!
Helpful hints. First time for me seeing the AW blog–awesome!
Is it just me, or is the Award Space limited since a few Months?
Lufthansa first class is quite the experience and I love the little ducks that they give you in the first class lounge.
you can periodically skip using the card for a month and they will still not let your miles expire, as long as you continue to use the card.
That is my experience as well. Sometimes I forget to use the card at least once in a given month and I don’t seem to have any problems.
Another program w/o a shopping portal that makes it harder to keep active. But if you use them regularly, you shouldn’t have an issue.
Good point. Wish all programs have easy ways to extend expiration.