Lufthansa Miles&More and Payback have a longstanding partnership that allows the transfer of Payback points to the airline’s frequent flyer program, but there presently appears to be some issue that prevents the timely transfer of points.
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You can access the Payback website here to ready more about the (partnership in German).
The particular issue is that Payback used to transfer to Lufthansa almost instantly, then changed to a 24-hour window, and now apparently takes several days.
There is also a current promotion that offers 20% bonus miles for transfers between 4,000 – 75,000 miles that ends January 31, 2025.
One of our readers transferred points earlier this week with the intend to instantly redeem an award flight as soon as the miles are credited, but so far the Lufthansa account shows nothing.
She initiated two separate transfers from Payback to Lufthansa:
- Transfer 1: January 19th
- Transfer 2: January 22nd
There was no credit for these points until today (Jan 25th), and this is slowly starting to create an issue as availability is dwindling.
Of course, this is always a risk when transferring points to airline programs, but the real issue here is that suddenly and without warning, the transfer time has changed significantly, which is really annoying.
Conclusion
It’s a bit extreme to wait for an entire week while Payback and Lufthansa apparently have some linkage issues, which previously wasn’t the case, and transfers were very efficient.
Payback is a loyalty program that allows consumers in Germany to collect points with everyday shopping transactions at Supermarkets, Department Stores, drug stores, and gas stations, among many other partners. American Express Germany is also a partner and allows the conversion of MR points to payback points at a rather poor 3:1 ratio; however, there is also a co-branded Payback Amex.
Have you faced issues transferring points from Payback to Lufthansa recently?
