Do you have a thousand Star Alliance miles and are thinking about how to spend them??
Sure, some ways are possible with all Star Alliance partners (like Lufthansa, United, or Aegean Airlines):
- Purchasing a ticket and paying with miles (~3 miles are equal to one cent)
- Booking a premium flight via Miles&More
- Booking Mileage Bargains via Meilenschnäppchen
- or the ultimate way: booking a “round the world”-ticket
This article is about the last option and why this causes some problems…
Some basics:
First, you could buy this ticket at the website and pay yourself. The boundaries are simple:
- You are only allowed to fly in one direction (west or east)
- maximum 15 stops, maximum flights 16
- minimum 10 days, maximum 1 year
You can design your route via the online tool and press the “next” button to book it.
Pretty easy…
If you want to spend miles for this, its more complicated:
- Eco costs 180k miles, business 335k miles, first class 500k miles
- its only 10 flight segments instead and 7 stopovers
- you are not able to use the online tool; you have to call the hotline to book
And now the problems are starting: All Star Alliance members have a different contingent of flights and seats, which can be paid with miles. Some release them early (like Lufthansa), and others late (like ANA). If you want to book early, no flight might be available for some parts of your route, and if you book late, others might be fully booked.
My initial idea was to book early, and I had a call with the hotline, and out of 7 flights, only 1 (!!) was available to book. The hotline says I should call later again, but yeah, it’s a world trip; I should start planning soon for my stations not to pay the highest hotel prices.. Pretty annoying…
That was the point when this option died; it is unpredictable if there is a point in time I can book my route…
So what’s next? Good question.
As I was trying some alternative routes and trying to find out if a mileage-eligible seat was available, I used the miles & more premium flight booking page. I found something unusual: As I said, I planned only seven flights, and if I booked them single via the premium flight program, I would spend fewer miles than the amount I would have to pay for the “round the world”-ticket as mentioned above…. That’s surprising, which brings me to a conclusion: I will book all available flights now and all the other flights later if possible. If there will never be a mileage-eligible seat available, I will book a cheaper flight outside of Star Alliance. Honestly, I will never again use Star Alliance to collect Miles, as the value is too low if you cannot use them…
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