Reader Comment: Lufthansa Miles & More Reinstates 57,000 Miles After Expiry Miscommunication

Today we have a Reader Comment concerning the expiration of Lufthansa Miles & More miles, which can catch members by surprise depending on how they plan on redeeming them, especially with changes involved.

Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll try to cover them here several times a week.

Lufthansa Miles & More is one of the programs that still has a natural expiration policy for miles collected. These miles will be valid for 36 months, after which they will expire by the end of the current quarter.

Some exceptions will preserve your Miles & More miles, such as holding M&M status (FTL/SEN/HON) or carrying a M&M co-branded credit card where the non-expiry of miles is a product feature.

Maria from Finland had the following problem with Lufthansa Miles&More that went beyond simple expiry but also involved a cancellation of an existing award:

On 23/6/24 we booked a normal 60 000 points flight award ticket (for travel end of April 2025). When the current M&M Miles Bargains were published 1 April, we found an interesting destination and decided we wanted to cancel the normal award flight in order to make a new booking for a Miles barging promo (for travel later in summer).

On 3 April 2025 we called the M&M team to arrange for the cancellation and return of the 60 000 miles to the M&M account, for a fee of 50 EUR. On my specific question, we were told that 57100 out of the 60000 would expire on 30 April 2025 (so plenty of time to use the miles before expiry).

The miles were indeed refunded immediately to the M&M account. The taxes a few days later.

However, after checking possibilities a few times over the following days, on day 7 after our cancellation, a new entry deducting 57100 miles had been introduced with a date 1 April 2025 and the points were gone! The transaction is entered BEFORE we made the cancellation……?!

After numerous phone calls with the M&M team, all they could suggest was that to file a claim with M&M.  I have, 3 different times, but no news yet and the points have not been returned.

During the last conversation with the M&M team, we were told that the 57100 miles had expiry date 31 March NOT 30 April (as we were told), so BEFORE our cancellation. That would mean the miles would be lost immediately upon cancelling the award ticket. It goes without saying that we would NEVER have cancelled and PAID for said cancellation had we been given correct info by M&M.

We have asked for nothing more than to have the 57100 miles returned to the account immediately so we can proceed to use them ASAP.

I fear we will be ignored and I wonder if there anything you can do to help us to recover the miles?

Many thanks!

This all sounded rather strange to me because April 30th is an unusual date for miles to expire, considering Lufthansa Miles&More works with quarters, not full, single months.

The reader included a screenshot:

The account entries look correct to me and correspond with M&M policy regarding the expiration of miles, on the first day after the respective quarter ends.

What appears to have happened here is that the agent gave the customer totally incorrect information. Now trying to get Miles&More fess up to their mistake is going to be a challenge unless the call was recorded.

After we got Maria’s email, I responded with a few explanations about M&M’s policies and carefully signaled that lowering expectations for the outcome of this case is probably the best:

… Miles&More’s expiration policy is very strict. If you cancel an award then miles subject to previous expiration will indeed only be “alive” for a very short moment before being expired.

The expiration date of miles should be visible in the account statement unless the miles are protected by either status or by holding a credit card in markets where available.

It’s clear that in your case, you were told that the miles would expire. It will be tough to prove this and even if, it won’t change the fact that the miles indeed expired earlier (in Q1).

Miles&More is not an ideal program for travelers who can’t amass a lot of miles in this relatively short 3-year period, let alone redeem them within the same time frame.

I would be highly surprised if Lufthansa would reinstate these miles based on the fact that they had naturally expired, no matter what that agent said. Unfortunately, the attempt to cancel and rebook under the mileage bargain scheme (which was discontinued after the system revamp) backfired here.