After Lufthansa copied the mileage credit in its new revenue-based Miles & More program in a very hastily manner from Air France KLM, it seems that the calculations were redone nevertheless more precisely in the meantime, leading to the conclusion that the value of 4 miles per EUR is not really the appropriate one, given the significantly higher award levels compared to other programs. And the mistake has been corrected quickly, at least temporarily: Online bookings of Lufthansa flights until May 31 and travels completed by August 30 qualify for 50% bonus miles. This reprieve applies, however, only to online bookings, only for Lufthansa flights (hence not for Swiss, Austrian or Brussels Airlines) and not for members in Switzerland or Austria.

TAP Air Portugal announced on the website that flight award levels for Star Alliance and other partner airlines would change in its Victoria program on March 15 (no changes to upgrade award levels) – without providing any further information upfront though. Obviously, the worst had to be feared like that. In the end, the changes were not unilateral though. While some award levels doubled, others were slightly decreased. The most remarkable changes are however the sharp increase of all intra-region award levels, in most cases increasing from 30,000 to 60,000 miles for an Economy Class roundtrip flight. Secondly, award levels on TAP Air Portugal were not changed, widening the gap between TAP and its partners on parallel routings further. A roundtrip award flight from Europe to Brazil in Business Class now costs 100,000 or 110,000 miles on TAP (low/high season), but 230,000 miles on partner airlines (which means concretely the Lufthansa Group). So using the program for anything else than redemptions on TAP does not provide any value anymore. And remember that the best value of the program can still be obtained by redeeming 200 miles for a cash discount of 10 EUR on TAP flights. This offer is available to members with a mileage balance of at least 2,000 miles.

One of the ideas of megalomania of Etihad was, as known, to want to create an own alliance by bringing together world spanning airlines such as Air Serbia, Air Seychelles or Niki and by initiating notably partnerships at the level of the Frequent Flyer Programs. While several of these airlines do not exist at all anymore in the meantime, also the remaining ones are no longer in any ordered relationship either. Alitalia terminated the Frequent Flyer partnership with Air Seychelles already in November. Now it has also been announced that Jet Airways will terminate the partnership with Alitalia – the two most significant remaining partners – in its program JetPrivilege (apparently on a unilateral basis) on April 30. The interesting thing about this is that the two programs of Jet Airways and Alitalia are still majority owned by Etihad and no better result seems to be possible even in such conditions.

Credit cards of Greek Eurobank have become an extremely interesting payment option for Aegean/Olympic Air flights thanks to a new partnership with Aegean Airlines’ Miles+Bonus: For each ticket paid with a card participating in its €pistrofi program, 3% of the ticket price is credited. For only 40 points – reached hence after having spent 1,333 EUR -, one receives a one-way ticket in Economy Class on European flights for a distance of up to 1,300 miles. Longer flights (e.g. Berlin, London, Paris) cost 60 points. Of course, those point credits/awards add up to normal flight-related mileage credits in Miles+Bonus.

As if the problems related to the Brexit were not big enough, times are also pretty turbulent at the coalition programs in the UK. Recently, Sainsbury took over the Nectar program of struggling Aimia, but risks having a hard time to continue to be perceived as neutral program. The second large coalition program Avios, which belongs to the IAG-Group, will even disappear completely from the scene in July and be merged into British Airways’ Executive Club. It is not yet clear how many of the additional partners will thereby be taken over. In any case, Avios already reduced its independent airlines partnerships starting last year, notably with Air Malta and Monarch (when the latter’s subsequent bankruptcy was not yet predictable). Now especially Flybe remains in the program, which is currently, however, under tremendous pressure as well and no longer such a strong competitor to British Airways as still a few years ago. Small anecdote on the side: Monarch went bankrupt when it was led by the former CEO of Avios…