I tried calling the helpdesk, who said they can book the award flight on the phone - but cannot give me the same rates found on their site (i.e. half the number of points for each flight segment)
Has anyone else had issues redeeming award flights? Seems a bit fishy to get an email with special offers - but you cannot redeem them!
Suspect it may be related to M&M’s “Exciting changes to your Award Flights from June 2025. ” Extensive programming probably required, but more likely intended to stop you booking under current rules.
How stupid does Lufthansa think its customers are? What kind of gaslighting is this?
This article tells the sad, sad story that Exciting changes will come directly from your pocket.
Try booking directly on the site using a different device. If you’re still unable to access special fares, you may want to try booking through another method, such as the airline’s mobile app, which may provide a smoother experience.
The mobile app (miles and more), just redirects to the website for award bookings.
Anyhow - it’s now partially working again, so it seems like it was very much linked to the change in how award flights are priced. Unsurprisingly, the awards from Switzerland still do NOT work, but those from Germany do.
So I can book a flight to Delhi from Munchen->Zurich->Delhi for 30,000 miles return… or I can do Zurich->Delhi for 60,000 miles return.
Starting to give up with Swiss, it’s just becoming more and more low-value.
Used to fly 5,6 times a week for 20 years mostly star alliance to now fly 5-6 times a year thankfully and don’t miss it one bit. Last few years of my regular flying Swiss got worse and worse… so have most airlines…Swiss are Just Ryanair with shoes…
I understand that customers don’t like it. On the other hand, I totally understand why the airline does this. It is consistent application of “customer segmentation” - which means maximum exploitation of customers’ willingness to pay.
And frankly, most award miles come out of corporate business travel that people got used to see as a perk. As companies get stingier on travel and airlines smarter in sales, the value of this declines and in my view generally the award programs also are less important than before.
I used to fly more than I do today and have seen how M&M got less and less attractive over the years. The pricing of direct long haul business flights nowadays is also nuts. Saw Swiss to Shanghai recently offered ar 12k. If you convert this into award miles needed …
So nowadays I just book what is the most convenient travel for me within budget and I don’t give a damn about any loyalty program anymore.
For me loyalty counts for priority in queues. Everything else, I don’t really care - even the lounges I would only partially miss as I usually fly direct and go to the airport at the last minute.
My problem is that tickets are getting more expensive (so more cash out), and then the collected points are worth less. So you’re getting squeezed both ways.
Swiss service is horrible, and as rightfully mentioned above is looking a lot like a low cost airline unless you’re long-haul business, which is also eye-watering.
I’ve cancelled my Miles and More credit cards earlier this year, and also moved my Star Alliance participation to Aegean as I fly a lot to Greece and it’s far easier to get Gold status so I can skip lines.
The new points system is brutal in Swiss, i know a couple HON members that will lose status and even with crazy schedules won’t be able to get back in again.
There is nothing interesting. I just went to UBS, and got a card with a higher limit as I had the same credit card limit with them since I was a student so it was really unusable for my situation.
Swisscard was charging me 300CHF/year for a Gold card, UBS was cheaper than that overall for my package. Didn’t bother with insurances and extra packages, and also did not bother going to Cornercard or anywhere else looking for other deals. I’ll collect Keyclub points which I can redeem at Galaxus that we use all the time and be done with it. I’ve got a decent balance of miles that I never use and probably never use, so I’ll probably pick something stupid from the shop and clear that account out
Really? I never made it further than SEN but that is totally fine. If you really need the car pick-up… Although I must admit that the separate bus to a separate passport control point coming back from the US was nice.
I booked for 2 of us to fly to Bangkok by Swiss Business Class last year naively assuming this would put me in good stead for a flight to Athens this year.
So my „free“ trip to Greece was not only more expensive than last year, my Thai Miles got me CHF32.00 off…
I still get enough miles for our holiday trips in BC every year but it is getting more difficult.
I still like the handling of being SEN with IRROPS as that status gets me on the next flight.
But they make it less attractive and more difficult to achieve status every year it seems.
I used to be a Senator. For more than 10 years. I remember reading that holding status for more than 10 years would be a guarantee of maintenance for life. Well, all went through the window after COVID…including the service that Swiss used to offer - they just became another european airline… but, hey, there are other perks of not having to fly every second day…
