If in the same message, somebody states “exciting changes” and “look forward to”, then you should already be careful. And if that somebody is Miles & More, which is not really known for a customer-focused program, all alarm whistles should go off.

As of June 03, the program will change the pricing of award flights on Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian flights to a fully dynamic pricing. As no further details are provided, it is clear that this will result in a massive increase of award prices for most flights, deteriorating as such the little remaining value of the program.

One small rescue remains though for those requiring some predictability of their loyalty program: Pricing for partner airlines will remain based on a published award table. Prices in that table will also change – notably increase in Business and First Class -, but mostly at moderated levels, unless for Business Class flights between Europe and Southeast Asia, which will increase from 142,000 to 200,000 miles.

The interesting point is though that not all members of the Lufthansa Group will apply that dynamic pricing: Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Discover and ITA will remain at a fixed pricing – as the other airlines outside of the Lufthansa Group using the Miles & More program as their own program, such as LOT or Luxair.

Dynamic reward pricing hardly has any friends among frequent flyers. Of course, this way one has access to more reward seats, but only at prices that are not attractive.

Until now, this could be circumvented by using rewards with partner airlines/programs in such programs (or for such airlines), to which a fixed pricing still applies – provided one finds such seats.

For frustrated Lufthansa customers, however, we no longer recommend Air Canada’s Aeroplan program in this regard: That is because as of March 25, it will start applying the dynamic pricing model not anymore to Air Canada flights only, but also to some first airline partners. Although Lufthansa is not yet among them (but “only” United, Emirates/FlyDubai, Etihad and a few smaller Canadian airlines), the trend is certainly not going in the right direction for savvy frequent flyers, whose primary goal is to maximize the value per redeemed mile.

The recent program changes in Emirates’ Skywards program can certainly be interpreted as the airline wanting more members to use their points in Economy Class rather than in higher cabins.

This is also emphasized by a current promotion: For bookings made by March 31 and departures until January 06, 2026, a 25% reduction in the mileage price is applied to all Economy Class award flights with partner airlines.

The offer is valid on all partner airlines, except for FlyDubai and easyJet – leaving 16 airlines from Air Mauritius to United Airlines.

The days when Southwest Airlines was the rebel of the US aviation industry are probably over for good. Thus, Southwest also does not resist the general trend in the USA of devaluing frequent flyer programs.

Without any advance notice, the earning rates for non-refundable fares, which most customers use, were drastically reduced in its Rapid Rewards program, from 8 to 6 points for Wanna Get Away Plus fares and from 6 to 2 points for Wanna Get Away fares.

This way, Southwest will at least save enough money in the short term to hire a marketing agency that can come up with a new name for the program. Because the Rewards are certainly no longer “Rapid” like that…

Although Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program has become the negative example in Europe in recent years regarding price transparency – a title that will probably be taken from them by Lufthansa in a few months (see above) – the miles still have some value.

So, a current promotion with Hertz is indeed of some interest. For bookings until April 02 (and rentals until June 21), you will receive 2,000 bonus miles for rentals of at least three days (and up to 5,000 miles for longer rentals). Together with the generous regular credits of 6 miles per EUR for base members, this results in a total of 3,800 miles for a 3-day rental at 100 EUR per day.

If you choose an electric car, you even double the base credit and end up with 5,600 miles which, despite the Flying Blue devaluations, look better than the standard credit of 500 miles  you would receive with most other programs.