Miles and more by Star Alliiance

[Nickolai Naydenov]

Has anybody signed for Miles and More program? I had 8 flights in 6 weeks and they were all with star alliance airlines and it also seems that I find the cheapest tickets to Europe with those companies anyway. I'd like to find out if it's really worth it?

[Dave A]

My experience is:

You get less and less for your air miles. It's kinda a triple whammy, especially when we're talking about flying on SAA -

• SAA has increased the number of miles needed to get on the same flight over the years
• The "airport taxes" portion of the ticket which are not covered by your miles and has to be paid for has increased as a percentage of the cost of the ticket.
• The number of miles you get on a flight has been steadily whittled away with a complex range of "cheaper" tickets.

The long and short of it is collect the miles if you're flying on a Star Alliance carrier by all means, but there's little sense in incurring an extra cost to chase those miles.