50,000 Miles Lufthansa Premier Miles & More MasterCard Worth It?

Update: Current Offer is for 20,000 miles with first purchase. Consider instead applying for another credit card on the Best Travel Credit Cards page.

—–Original Post——-

The Lufthansa Premier Miles & More MasterCard is offering a 50,000 miles signup bonus after $5000 in spend: . Is it worth it? Here are the offer details:

• 20,000 Miles & More miles after first purchase

• Additional 30,000 Miles & More miles after spending $5000 in the first 90 days

• $79 annual fee is NOT waived

• Earn 2 miles per dollar spent on tickets purchased directly from the Lufthansa group

• Earn 1 mile per dollar spent on all other purchases

• Offered by Barclaycard

 I've added this offer to the Best Travel Credit Cards page, second to the bottom. Here's why:

Pros

• 50,000 miles: good as bonuses go; but Miles & More miles are also not worth as much as SPG points, Ultimate Rewards points, Membership Rewards points, United miles, or American miles

• $5000 minimum spend over 90 daysis on the high side for a personal card, although is made easier if you have access to Vanilla Reload cards. See Tips for Meeting Minimum Spend 

• Book roundtrip business class on United for 35,000 Lufthansa Miles & More miles

• Get access to Lufthansa First Class award space *in advance* (although keep in mind cons below)

• May book one way awards for half the miles cost of roundtrip

• 25% discount in award miles needed for children 2-11 years old. Most airlines don't give any reduction on either revenue fares or award bookings for children 2 and older, so even this small discount is nice

• Since it's a Barclaycard credit card it can add good issuer diversity for an app-o-rama

Cons

• Best for the bonus; for ongoing non-Lufthansa spend, the SPG AMEX is better since you can transfer 20,000 points to 25,000 Miles & More miles 

• High fuel surcharges on Lufthansa and other long haul Star Alliance partner flights

• Expensive award chart: 170,000 Miles & More miles for Lufthansa First Class U.S.-Europe roundtrip, plus the high fuel surcharges, vs. 135,000 United miles and fees of ~$80 each way

• Have to call Lufthansa to book U.S. domestic awards, one way awards, child awards

• Miles & More miles have stringent miles expiration policies: miles expire after 36 months if not used, regardless of flight activity. Miles & More credit cardholders must have at least one purchase (that is not returned or refunded) with their Miles & More credit card each month

• Annual fee is not waived the first year

• Note that you could get approved for a the Lufthansa Platinum Miles & More MasterCard with only 5000 Miles & More miles as the signup bonus–if you apply, make sure you confirm which card you got approved for and the signup bonus!

• Barclaycard tends to decline applicants who have recently applied for new credit cards; you'll have a better chance of being approved if you don't have any recent credit card applications for the past few months