Every time you book a flight, the same question comes up: Which frequent flyer number should you enter? The most intuitive answer—”the frequent flyer program of the airline I’m flying with”—is surprisingly often the wrong one. Within an airline alliance such as Star Alliance, Oneworld, or SkyTeam, you can usually credit your flight to any partner program you choose. And the differences between programs can be enormous, ranging from 0% to over 300% of the distance flown for the exact same seat on the exact same flight.
Nearly ten years ago, we introduced you to a handy tool called Where to Credit. A lot has changed since then: the frequent flyer landscape has become significantly more complex, and WtC is now officially part of Travel-Dealz.
Table of Contents
Why Choosing the Right Program Matters
While airlines within an alliance accept each other for mileage accrual, they rarely treat each other equally. How many miles you earn on any given flight depends on multiple variables, such as:
- Operating airline
- Marketing airline (codeshare)
- Booking class (fare bucket)
- Fare type
- Ticket price
- Flight distance / route
An expensive flexible ticket in booking class Y will generally yield 100% or more across virtually every partner program. On the other hand, a heavily discounted economy ticket might earn decent miles in one program, while netting you exactly zero in another.
This is where many travelers leave value on the table: they automatically credit flights to their primary program out of habit, even when another partner program offers a significantly higher payout for that specific booking class. Especially with discounted fares that often earn 0 miles, checking your options before flying is essential.
Award Miles vs. Status Miles: No Longer in Sync
A decade ago, most flights awarded identical numbers of award and status miles based on a single percentage multiplier of the distance flown. That is no longer the case. More and more programs have shifted to revenue-based, zone-based, or hybrid systems where award miles (used for redemptions) and status miles (used to earn elite tier status) accrue at completely different rates. One program might be ideal for racking up redeemable miles, while another offers a faster path to elite status.
The Solution: Where to Credit
This is precisely where Where to Credit comes in. Simply pick an operating airline and booking class to instantly see the mileage accrual rates across every partner program.
Travel-Dealz helped develop the German localization of the original tool nearly ten years ago. Because the original platform could not accommodate revenue-based earning or separate award and status miles, we initially built our own database at miles.travel-dealz.com. When original founder Adam moved on to new ventures, we agreed to take over the project: since November 2025, Travel-Dealz has been maintaining and expanding wheretocredit.com directly.
This transition brought major enhancements: the tool now breaks down award vs. status miles, covers over 50 frequent flyer programs, and is available in 14 languages.
How to Find the Best Program for Your Flight
When planning a specific flight and checking your earning potential, WtC gives you two options:
Look Up a Booking Class Directly
On the homepage, select your airline and booking class to view an overview of all partner programs and their earning percentages. You can also jump straight via direct URLs—for instance, wheretocredit.com/en/LH/K for Lufthansa in class K. If you aren’t sure which fare class you have booked, the airline overview page lists all available booking classes for each carrier.
At the top of the page, you can also enter your route and ticket details directly:
Clicking “Calculate” gives you the exact projected mileage credit per program, including applicable elite tier bonuses.
The New Miles Calculator
If your itinerary consists of multiple segments with different airlines or mixed booking classes, use the Mileage Calculator. Enter your full routing and ticket price (essential for revenue-based earning models) to see a comprehensive side-by-side comparison of award and status miles across different programs—without needing to calculate distances manually.
Case Study: Lufthansa in Booking Class K
Booking class K is one of Lufthansa’s lowest economy fare buckets, frequently used for heavily discounted promotional tickets. Looking up this fare class on Where to Credit yields the following results:
ANA Mileage Club tops the chart at 30% of flown distance, closely followed by Miles&More and United MileagePlus at 25% (or 4 award miles per euro spent on LH tickets). Meanwhile, several Star Alliance partners—such as Aegean Miles+Bonus, Air Canada Aeroplan, and Air China PhoenixMiles—award absolutely 0 miles for class K.
The program with the highest percentage is not always your best choice. If you credit every single flight to a different program, you will end up with small, fragmented mileage balances that expire before you can redeem them.
In the long run, it is much more effective to focus on one primary loyalty program that best matches your overall travel patterns.
Looking back at our 2016 article highlights how dynamic the frequent flyer landscape is: back then, SAS EuroBonus was one of the recommended options for crediting Lufthansa flights. SAS has since left Star Alliance to join SkyTeam, making EuroBonus completely ineligible for LH flights today.
Across Lufthansa’s 22 different booking classes, Miles&More is the home program, but far from your only choice: flights can be credited to 19 different partner programs worldwide.
Practical Tips for Crediting Miles
Here are a few essential tips to keep in mind when crediting your flights:
- Check before departure: Add your frequent flyer number during booking or online check-in. Changing or retro-crediting flights after departure can be cumbersome.
- Separate award and status goals: If you are pursuing elite status, prioritize programs that award qualifying points/miles over those that merely offer higher redeemable award miles.
- Pay close attention to deep-discount economy tickets: Budget fare classes show the widest discrepancies between partner programs and carry the highest risk of earning 0 miles.
- Keep retro-claims in mind: Most programs allow you to claim missing miles retroactively within several months of travel. Keep boarding passes and e-ticket receipts handy.
- Look beyond the Big Three alliances: Bilateral airline partnerships outside Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam often offer surprisingly generous crediting opportunities.
- Stick to one primary program and 1–2 backups: To avoid orphaned balances, keep the vast majority of your flights within a single primary program per alliance. Keep a secondary program ready only for booking classes where your primary program yields 0 miles.
- Splitting status perks and mileage accrual: Many airlines now require your elite status program to match the crediting program on your boarding pass to receive perks like lounge access or extra baggage. If you credit to a different program, you may risk forfeiting those elite perks on that journey.
Conclusion
The core mission of Where to Credit remains the same as it was ten years ago: to help travelers find the best frequent flyer program for any flight quickly and easily. Head over to wheretocredit.com to explore your earning options, and feel free to send feedback or feature suggestions directly to ditmar@travel-dealz.com.