Even if you don’t usually consider the idea of flying in First Class with a paid ticket, you should read on briefly.

Lufthansa is offering Miles & More members double miles in First Class for bookings made by the end of the year and travel until March 31, 2026, but only on four routes: from Frankfurt to Washington and Mexico, as well as from Munich to San Francisco and Delhi.

And here the calculation gets interesting: Assuming a reference price of 12,500 EUR for such a round trip, a basic member would earn 100,000 miles on these routes – as a status customer, even 125,000 miles.

With the new dynamic pricing system, you can still find many reward flights within Europe at the Economy Light fare for under 2,000 miles per round trip. So with a single expensive luxury flight, you can get around 50 free flights in Europe (of course, plus the obligatory surcharges of around 100 EUR) – which is certainly not bad. Just make sure in advance that your desired European routes actually offer such a low award value, as this is not the case on all routes. From Frankfurt, the price range indeed varies from 348 miles for a one-way flight to Vienna to 7,962 miles for a flight to Gothenburg.

On January 01, 2026, Virgin Atlantic is introducing a new benefit in their Flying Club: Every time you fly with Virgin Atlantic in five different years, you will receive a bonus of 12,000 miles. Award flights also count as activity, and these five years do not have to be consecutive.

As a Flying Club base member, you will also receive a 10% bonus on all future Virgin Atlantic flights.

Even better, Virgin is considering all flight activity back to 2021 for this offer, meaning that the first members will get their first bonus immediately and as a surprise gift. Of course, these 12,000 miles won’t offset the increase in Business Class award prices, which have often multiplied with the dynamic pricing system, but the gesture is still nice.

Even if you personally aren’t affected, there’s an interesting lesson to be learnt here: Sometimes you do something today and are rewarded for it years later, without knowing it in advance. How often you should expect such luck with Frequent Flyer programs, however, is another question!

SAS’ EuroBonus program is increasing the award prices on its own and partner flights starting December 01 – but only in Business Class. Some prices will increase by up to 20% (even 33% within Europe).

This leads to the curious situation where, on some routes, the prices come very close to the prices of First Class awards. So a round trip from Europe to South America in Business Class now costs 190,000 miles (instead of the previous 165,000 miles), while the price for the First Class flight here is “only” 225,000 miles.

Indeed, a small consolation – especially taking into account the very limited availability of First Class awards -, but we are happy if it helps someone among our readership!

Flying Blue has introduced two subscription plans under the name Flying Blue Extras, allowing members to purchase additional benefits.

The main benefits are up to 25% extra miles on flights with Air France and KLM, lounge vouchers, an extended selection of Promo Rewards, and – in the higher version – a 10% reduction on the first two reward bookings within a year.

All this sounds interesting. However, whether it is worth the price of 379 or 699 EUR must be doubted in many cases, and therefore, depending on the expected behaviour, a detailed calculation should be made before signing up here, whereby the value of the extended selection of Promo Rewards remains somehow the unknown parameter in the equation.

Let’s not kid ourselves, but not everyone is a super frequent traveller, yet they still want to benefit from loyalty programs.

Choice Privileges, the loyalty program of Choice Hotels, which operates more in the budget and mid-range sector, is increasingly targeting this demographic, especially with the recent program changes.

Starting in 2026, you can reach the first elite level with just five nights or receive an annual points bonus after your second and third stays. Soon, you’ll also be able to transfer points to other program members.

And if you become a big fan of Choice Hotels with these changes, you might also be interested to know that after 55 nights per year, you can reach a new, highest membership level, where, as an additional benefit, you receive a reward stay of up to seven nights at a 50% discount once a year.

Until December 26, you also receive a bonus of 1,000 points per night at Choice Hotels after prior registration.