Two years ago, my husband and I each signed up for the Barclays Lufthansa credit card when the bonus was 100k miles. We got a windfall of 200k total miles! I spent 71k miles from each of our accounts for business class flights on partner Asiana Airlines from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 2024. That left us with around 30k miles in each account.
Those miles have been difficult to spend. In the USA, you can’t combine Lufthansa miles with family members. Lufthansa also isn’t a transfer partner of the major banks (only Rove, which is a relatively new program). So, that essentially left us with “orphaned” miles in two accounts that we could only spend on low-mileage awards.
Spending those Lufthansa Miles
Over the past year, I’ve tried unsuccessfully to book domestic United award flights with those leftover Lufthansa miles. But, I either couldn’t find availability for the route I needed, or I waited too long to pull the trigger.
Thankfully, last week, I finally hit the jackpot. I found award availability on United from Fort Lauderdale to DFW (with a short stopover in Houston). This is for our trip home from St. Maarten next year. The cost using United miles was 12,500 miles, but the cost using Lufthansa miles was 14,000 miles.
Still worth paying the extra 1500 miles to get rid of those orphaned Lufthansa miles! I didn’t have enough miles for all 5 in my family, so I’ll need to use United miles for the final ticket.’
Now, I still need to find a good for my orphaned TAP Air Portugal miles. Do you have any orphaned miles you are trying to spend?
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Trade you those orphaned TAP miles for a handful of orphaned Aegean, Qatar and Emirates miles and, as a big bonus, 723 Ultimate Rewards from a no-fee Sapphire card that cannot be transferred into airline miles.