Lufthansa First Class Bookable in Advance Right Now

by Gary Leff

Normally Lufthansa only makes first class award space available much in advance to its own Miles & More members. Star Alliance partner frequent flyer programs can only book that space within 2 weeks of departure.

Right now though some frequent flyer programs have access to Lufthansa first class space through the entire calendar. United and Aeroplan do not seem to have access to this space, however via You Have Been Upgraded Avianca LifeMiles does.

Many readers will have LifeMiles because of their frequent mileage sales, or because they are a Citi transfer partner. Some will even purchase miles now for this.

I’m not seeing availability for Lufthansa first between the US and Europe, though I am for many other routes. For instance you can fly from Mexico City to Frankfurt pretty easily in first.

And there’s availability between Europe and Asia, too. So putting together North America – Asia via Europe is pretty doable.

Now Swiss doesn’t make their first class awards available to anyone but Miles & More elites, except when they occasionally do. And Swiss always honored those bookings – until late last year when they didn’t – so it’s possible I suppose that Lufthansa could renege on this too. But even though Swiss is owned by Lufthansa my guess is that they’ll be more reasonable.

We’ve seen this before (for instance here and here) and it was honored in those cases.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I was surprised by this, I just booked through them EWR to FRA (FC) and then to CDG (BC) first class 83K points with LifeMiles and $69.29 . Got one for Sunday and one for Monday

  3. LM frequently has LH F MUC/FRA-JFK more or less last minute. So it’s no error fare. I have flown it no probs.

  4. If you fly LH First from JFK to Munich but have to purchase separate business class ticket Munich to LHR, do they grant access to LH First Class Lounge? Thanks!

  5. I am seeing a lot of LH first and business available now on Singapore Airlines site that is not available on United or Aeroplan. Verified availability on ExpertFlyer as well. One of many strange things I’ve seen lately with *A award availability. Had a reverse phantom award situation. United agent said no availability and then immediately booked online.

  6. I was able to book SFO-MUC-TLV in March for 2 people. First leg is in F, second is in business.

  7. I have a trip to Zurich in early July, do you think I will have a good shot at getting a single Lufthansa first class seat two weeks out?

    Thanks

  8. In the last few months, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting LH connections to and from USA to LHR via MUC or FRA even though both legs are available in F and J. However, recently, two city pairs seem to work: LHR – ORD back and forth and LHR – MIA via either MUC or FRA. But still nothing from JFK, EWR or IAD to or from LHR. Anyone know a way around it. But thanks for the tip, as luck would have it, I was able to book a R/T ORD – FRA – LHR – FRA – ORD in F in May and June and a O/W LHR – MUC – MIA in 2019. So very pleased with that.

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