Benchmarking Europe’s Three Biggest Airline Groups: Does Your Status Travel?

The Loyalty Shift: Season 2, Edition 7

The Caravelo Loyalty Scorecard is our benchmark for what a loyalty programme is actually worth to the person carrying the card. Fifteen sub-dimensions, scored 0 to 5, grouped under the three pillars of the Relational Anchor: Access, Control and Convenience. The three pillar scores average into a single Anchor Score. If you missed the methodology piece, you can find it here.

Six editions in, the scorecard has always assessed one brand at a time. This one assesses groups. Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM and IAG each run a single loyalty currency across a set of airlines with very little else in common, so we score the programme rather than any one airline. A programme that works beautifully on the main airline and badly on the rest is not really one programme.

Every one of these groups owns a low-cost airline. Not one of them has worked out what its loyalty programme should do there.

The three programmes we assessed

• Miles & More, one currency and one status ladder across nine carriers including Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and Brussels Airlines, plus the low-cost Eurowings.
• Flying Blue, one currency and one ladder across Air France, KLM and the low-cost Transavia.
• Avios, one currency shared by four separate programmes: British Airways Club, Iberia Club, AerClub and Vueling Club, alongside LEVEL, the group’s long-haul low-cost airline, which has no programme at all.

Lufthansa and Air France have both sold prepaid flight bundles before. FlightPass sold books of European segments until it stopped taking purchases in January 2024, and Le Pass did much the same thing for Air France until it was retired. Neither is on sale now, so neither is scored. That two of Europe’s three biggest groups built a way to sell flying in bulk and then walked away from it says more than any score would.

The European Group Scorecard: One Currency, Three Answers

Each programme’s scores draw a triangle. A full, even shape means an anchored relationship. A thin corner shows where the programme has invested least.

No two of these agree on what a group loyalty programme is for.

• Miles & More draws the widest shape on the board, even at Access and Convenience, pinched at Control.
• Flying Blue draws almost the same shape one size smaller, level on Access and lower on both of the other pillars.
• Avios is the odd one out, the only triangle where Control stands nearly level with Access, and the only one whose thin corner is Convenience.

Just 0.3 separates first from last. So how each group is built did not decide how much loyalty it built. It decided where.

We start with the group that wrote its promise down.

Miles & More: The Promise in Writing

Lufthansa Group runs the most integrated loyalty architecture in European aviation. One currency, one login and one status ladder across nine airlines, climbing from Frequent Traveller to Senator and then to HON Circle, a tier so hard to reach it takes around fifteen long-haul business class round trips a year. Even so, the programme does not work the same way on every aircraft the group owns.

On Access, the programme does hold back inventory. Since June 2026 Lufthansa has released no First Class award seats to partner programmes at all, while Miles & More members book them from the day schedules open. It is one cabin on one airline, and nothing similar exists on cash fares (a 3 out of 5 on Exclusive Inventory). Above that, the status tiers do the work. Senator brings lounges and upgrade vouchers, and HON Circle adds the private First Class Terminal in Frankfurt (a 4 out of 5 on Priority and Early Access).

Then there is the thing no other programme in this series has done. Senator carries a written promise of “a confirmed booking in your chosen travel class even on fully booked flights” up to 48 hours before departure, across the group’s airlines. HON Circle members can book award seats for themselves and three companions “even when no more Award Flight seats are available”, up to 14 days out. Both are contractual, both are published, and both stop at the top two tiers, which most members never reach (a 4 out of 5 on Guaranteed Availability, the highest this dimension has scored in seven editions).

What the programme will not do is make flying more often any cheaper. Pooling miles across a household is free, but nothing rewards volume (a 2 out of 5 on Volume and Frequency Enablement).

On Control, the same programme looks much less generous. Award prices float with demand on six of the nine carriers with no published chart, so a member cannot look up what a redemption should cost. The one planning tool applies to cash tickets rather than awards, a seventy-two hour fare hold from around seven euros that every group here sells (a 3 out of 5 on Price Predictability). Redemption is where it bites. Every partner award carries a flat fifty euro fee. Refund fees on some Asia and Africa routes jumped past a thousand euros in May 2026 before being partly reversed. And the cash surcharges on a First Class award, up to 1,150 euros, cannot be paid with miles at all (a 2 out of 5 on both Flexibility and Cancellation and Pricing Clarity).

So the guarantees are real and Control still sits at 2. A promise about a seat is not a promise about a price.

On Convenience, the group’s scale finally works in the member’s favour, with one exception.

• Express Rail sells a Lufthansa flight and a German high-speed train as one ticket, with the train carrying a Lufthansa flight number so the connection is protected like any other (a 4 out of 5 on Cross-Journey Integration).
• Travel ID, the single login the group uses across its airlines, holds documents, payment and preferences on six of the nine carriers (a 3 out of 5 on Remembered Preferences).
• The Miles & More app rated 3.3 on Android this September, against 4.5 to 4.9 for the group’s airline apps, which makes the loyalty app the worst-rated app the group ships (a 3 out of 5 on Digital User Experience).

What caps Miles & More is consistency. Two pricing systems share one wallet, three carriers sit outside Travel ID, and on Eurowings the lounge and the second bag stay behind a pricier fare unless you already hold Senator.

Miles & More draws the widest triangle on the board, with one visible notch at Control (Anchor 3.0). A Well-Built Commodity that built the one thing the archetype says it should not have. What holds it back is not access. It is price.

Flying Blue: The One That Sells Access

Air France-KLM runs Flying Blue across three airlines. Its status ladder climbs from Explorer through Silver, Gold and Platinum to Ultimate at the top. It is the only group here that sells a better relationship by subscription.

On Access, that is the whole difference. Where the other two make members fly their way up a ladder, Flying Blue runs a shop.

• The Carte Abonnement costs 419 euros a year and gives 130 euros off every flexible Economy return, along with two checked bags, free changes close to departure, and XP, the points that move you up the tiers.
• Flying Blue Extra sells a second discount layer across Air France and KLM.
• Subscribe to Miles sells miles outright, and members can pool miles across eight people for free.

That is three paid routes to a better deal plus free pooling, and neither of the other two groups sells a single one of them (a 4 out of 5 on Volume and Frequency Enablement). The tiers are strong in their own right, stacking lounges, guest access and upgrade vouchers, though the benefits thin out sharply once you leave Air France and KLM (a 4 out of 5 on Priority and Early Access). What is missing is any promise. Flying Blue commits to nothing when a flight fills up, and the one guarantee a member can fall back on comes from SkyTeam, the alliance Air France and KLM belong to. It applies only to cash tickets, and it is not Flying Blue’s to give (a 2 out of 5 on Guaranteed Availability).

On Control, the record is harder to defend.

• Saver awards rose around twenty percent in January 2025 with no warning, and in September 2026 the programme raised its mid-tier Standard awards another 20 to 25 percent while leaving the cheaper Light awards at the old price with their benefits stripped out. There is still no chart, only an estimator. What softens this is the abonnement, which locks in a year of discounted fares (a 3 out of 5 on Price Predictability).
• The monthly Promo Rewards discount now books as a Light fare, which makes the cheapest redemption the one that cannot be changed or refunded (a 2 out of 5 on Flexibility and Cancellation).
• Seat selection on a long-haul award runs past two hundred dollars a segment, and the cabin bag left the Basic fare during 2026 (a 2 out of 5 on Ancillary Control and Upgrades).

Every one of those changes took something away from the member.

On Convenience, miles convert straight into French high-speed rail vouchers, and Train+Air sells a flight and a train as one booking (a 4 out of 5 on Cross-Journey Integration). The standalone Flying Blue app was shut down in July 2026 and loyalty folded back into the Air France and KLM apps, which are excellent. Of the three groups, this is the one that no longer has a loyalty app of its own (a 3 out of 5 on Digital User Experience). Then there are the terms. Flying Blue reserves the right to change how miles are earned and redeemed with notice given only through its own communications, and leaves the job of watching for expiry to the member. It has changed prices twice since January 2025 with little or no warning (a 2 out of 5 on Proactive Communication).

The subscriptions stop at the edge of the group. Neither card works on Transavia, which runs as two separate airlines in France and the Netherlands, and the European card does not work on KLM either. On the French side only Platinum and Ultimate members get anything at all, and the Dutch side recognises no Flying Blue status whatsoever.

Flying Blue draws almost the same triangle as Miles & More, one size smaller (Anchor 2.8). A Well-Built Commodity that has worked out how to sell access, and not yet how to keep the promise afterwards.

Avios: One Currency, Four Clubs

IAG did the hard part first. Avios is one currency across British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling and LEVEL, transferable between them and spendable in a supermarket. Then it stopped. Sitting on top of that single currency are four separate loyalty programmes, each with its own login, its own status ladder and its own rules.

On Access, the currency buys something neither rival can match. British Airways guarantees a minimum number of reward seats on every flight, twelve on short-haul and fourteen on long-haul, released the day schedules open, nearly a year ahead. That is an actual number the airline commits to, not a vague promise to try (a 4 out of 5 on Exclusive Inventory). It works best early, though, since the seats appear at release rather than when a flight is filling up (a 3 out of 5 on Guaranteed Availability).

Where it breaks down is status. Whether yours means anything depends entirely on which of the four clubs issued it.

• British Airways status is recognised on Iberia through oneworld, the alliance both airlines belong to, and on Aer Lingus through a direct deal between the two.
• Iberia Club has counted Vueling flights toward tier qualification since October 2025.
• Vueling Club status is recognised nowhere else in the group.
• LEVEL offers no status benefits to anyone, by its own account.

Recognition travels down the group and never back up (a 3 out of 5 on Priority and Early Access). The sense of belonging fares better, thanks to Gold for Life, a permanent status that takes a lifetime of flying to reach. But April 2026 counts against it, when British Airways extended thousands of qualifying periods and then reversed the extensions within days, with downgrades and no compensation (a 3 out of 5 on Identity and Community Signal).

On Control, IAG leads the edition, and it does so from last place overall.

• It is the only one of the three with a published award chart, and a floor under what the currency is worth, because Avios convert one for one with Nectar, the UK supermarket points scheme. The December 2025 increase of around ten percent came with less than two weeks’ notice, which is thin, though Flying Blue’s January 2025 increase came with none (a 3 out of 5 on Price Predictability).
• The relaunched British Airways app sends reward bookings out to a web browser and pushes tier progress back to the website, so the things a member most wants to do on the move are the things the app will not do (a 2 out of 5 on Real-time Flexibility).
• Spain’s consumer ministry fined Vueling 39.2 million euros over how it priced and displayed baggage, and a Madrid court later suspended the penalty pending appeal. The case is still open, and Vueling is one of the four clubs (a 3 out of 5 on both Pricing Clarity and Ancillary Control and Upgrades).

On Convenience, the four clubs finally cost the member something. Anyone flying British Airways, Iberia and Vueling holds three accounts and three balances. Move Avios shifts points between them free and instantly, once you clear the waiting period and matching rules it added after a run of account thefts (a 2 out of 5 on Booking Simplicity). Nothing a member tells one club reaches the other three. The apps are no better, with the British Airways app rating four and a half stars on iOS this September against one and a half on Android (a 2 out of 5 on Digital User Experience). The currency is the one part that works everywhere, spending across Nectar, Sainsbury’s, hotels, car hire and Uber, which makes it the only programme here that turns up in a weekly grocery shop (a 4 out of 5 on Cross-Journey Integration).

The ceiling is what IAG has not done. It unified the money and never unified the membership, and a search tool launched this summer still finds reward seats across three airlines only to send you to each one’s own site to pay.

Avios draws the flattest triangle on the board, and the only one whose thin corner is Convenience (Anchor 2.7). A Well-Built Commodity that built the best single promise in the edition, then asked its members to hold four accounts to get at it.

What Europe’s Airline Groups Tell Us

Lufthansa runs one programme and finishes first. IAG runs four and finishes last. But only 0.3 separates them, which means the way each group is built decided where it is strong, not how strong it is. IAG leads the Control pillar from last place overall.

What all three share is the order in which they built things. Every one unified the currency before it unified the experience, and every one stopped at the same airline. On Eurowings the lounge and the second bag stay behind a pricier fare unless you already hold Senator. On Transavia only the top two Flying Blue tiers get anything in France, and nothing at all in the Netherlands. On Vueling, members earn Avios like everyone else while Vueling Club status is recognised nowhere else in the group. Recognition travels down and never back up, and each of these groups has settled on treating the passengers who buy its cheapest seats as a lesser class of member.

Control is where all three cluster, averaging 2.6, and nobody is trying to win on it. Access is where the next decade gets decided, and the comparison is not flattering. A full-service group with nine airlines and a written seat guarantee scores 3.2 on Access, while Wizz Air reached 3.0 on memberships costing less than a checked bag. Scale turned out to be worth very little.

Next, we take the three airlines every one of these groups forgot, Eurowings, Transavia and Vueling, and score them on their own terms.

The group that extends its guarantee to the airline its members actually fly will be the first Anchored Brand this series records.