[jimworcs]

For years I have been banging on about how frequent flyer schemes are a fraud on the consumer and a waste of time. You are almost always better off getting the best value/most convenient flight available at the time of booking. This complaint in the Guardian illustrates the point perfectly:

I fly two or three times a year from Birmingham to Rome. Until recently, there were no direct flights, so I went via Switzerland or Germany and in so doing managed to accumulate 12,800 Star Alliance "rewards" points on its Miles & More rewards programme. Needing to book a flight for this summer, even though two other carriers now offer direct flights I decided to use up those miles. I checked how many reward miles I needed and it came up as 15,000. By purchasing an additional 3,000 miles at a cost of €85 I thought it would still be cheaper than the £120 or so for Monarch's direct flight.

I went ahead and booked the flight using the points. I was alarmed when I had to put in credit card details but assumed it would be all right as I was dealing with reputable companies. However, I found that £206 had been applied to my card.

I have complained and been told that I was charged because I did not have enough miles to cover the taxes and surcharges. I then went on to the Swiss Air web page and found that I could have booked a return Birmingham-Rome flight for as little as £68 each way, all in. I feel utterly conned. ET, Coventry

For many years there's been a great deal of scepticism among consumers as to whether airline rewards programmes actually deliver, and letters like yours show why. We contacted Lufthansa, which runs the Miles & More programme in Germany, and can at least confirm one thing – those using the site to "buy" flights, are told how much they will be expected to pay if they don't have enough points to cover the taxes and charges, which in your case would have been another 15,000 points – 30,000 in total.

A Lufthansa spokesman sent us a screen shot showing a booking, and while the figure could be more prominently displayed, it is there. You must have missed it when booking.

Asked whether these programmes were ever worthwhile given your findings, he said they were aimed at serious flyers clocking up thousands of points a month. He conceded that it was often cheaper to book a flight directly rather than by using points.

To get an idea of how much you would have needed to fly to get a free flight to Rome, he said that someone flying from Manchester to New York changing planes in Germany (if you could face such a journey) would receive 6,000 Miles & More points. In other words, you would have had to do this five times to get enough points (30,000) to have booked you free flight to Rome. The moral of the tale, it seems, is always to check whether it is cheaper to book elsewhere rather than use rewards points.