Europe’s leading frequent flyer programme Miles & More has set a new record. The 20 millionth Miles & More member was fêted at a special ceremony at the Brussels headquarters of Brussels Airlines last month.

During the ceremony, Brussels Airlines chief executive officer Bernard Gustin and Hubert Frach, marketing manager of Lufthansa Passenger Airlines, presented Laurent Schmidt, chief executive officer of a Belgian company, with a digital camera from the attractive range of brand products offered by the Lufthansa Worldshop and a mileage voucher for 50,000 award miles.

Miles & More’s 20 million members come from 234 countries worldwide, about a third of them from Germany. On average, 5,000 new members sign up for the programme daily.

A Miles & More card is used an average of 150,000 times daily, across the globe. About 1.7 million awards are redeemed yearly. Miles & More has more than 250 partners, with which members can accrue or redeem mile credits.

Brussels Airlines merged its onetime frequent flyer programme Pri-vilege with Lufthansa’s on October 25, 2009, boosting Miles & More membership by more than 200,000.

Since then, the Belgian carrier has been responsible for supporting all Miles & More members and partners in Belgium.

A total of nine airlines now offer passengers Miles & More as their own frequent flyer programme: Adria Airways, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Croatia Airlines, LOT, Lufthansa, Luxair and Swiss.

In the Miles & More Silver Promotion 2011, members have an easier option to become a frequent traveller or retain their frequent traveller status by simply taking 30 flights (15 round trips) during the year with a partner airline. This automatically qualifies them for frequent-traveller status and its many privileges for two years. (Source: Lufthansa)