A couple of weeks ago Lufthansa first class awards had become bookable using partner miles. That’s significant because normally Lufthansa only makes first class award space available in advance to its own Miles & More members. Star Alliance partner frequent flyer programs can generally only book that space within 2 weeks of departure.
- Some programs — such as Singapore Airlines, Avianca Lifemiles, and Aegean Miles & Bonus — were able to book the seats. United and Aeroplan couldn’t.
- It wasn’t showing up between the US and Europe, but was bookable from Mexico City and between Europe and Asia.
Then a few days later San Francisco – Munich first class awards became available.
Now Chicago – Frankfurt is open. Availability is especially good in August, there are even days with four first class seats available. You can book this on the LifeMiles or Singapore websites.
Many readers have Lifemiles because they sell miles cheap and are a Citi transfer partner. Singapore miles are more common and a phone agent can hold the space pending a transfer, though not all will. Lifemiles doesn’t add fuel surcharges to these awards though Singapore Airlines Krisflyer will.
Lufthansa first class awards are a real unicorn. It’s also a good product, with a really nice ground experience at their German hubs. So if you have the miles you’ll want to jump on this.
(HT: Holly D.)
Any idea the average time between buying lifemiles and them being deposited to the account?
Hey Shaun I transferred some Citi points in last week and then bought the rest for a first class redemption on Lufthansa (first time)! Paid 1.51c for the points plus pay redemption. Wasnt as cheap as some promotions but meant if booking didn’t go through didn’t commit points over to lifemiles. Transaction was seemless.
Booked for three weeks away! Actually paid less than 87,000 miles as added connection in business class. Paid like 84,700. Strange quirk.
One last tip. Lifemiles promotion works on the lh website.
Sorry, last paragraph meant to mean lifemiles “confirmation code” works on lh website
Since it opened up a few weeks ago, there’s loads of LifeMiles availability to the US if you look for it. Chicago has lots but I’ve also booked Miami and Boston. There’s almost daily availability to India and Brazil until December and I’ve seen some to HND and PVG. However, Lifemiles does have problems showing some connecting cities via FRA and MUC. For example LHR-FRA/MUC-ORD comes up fine but not LHR-FRA/MUC-JFK, EWR, IAD or BOS. If both legs are available, you can request a manual booking, if you have the time and stomach for it. This has been documented before in various forums but as a reminder, you need to send an email to support@lifemiles.com with screenshots of available flights, full details of itinerary, your name, LifeMiles number, date of birth, phone number, email address AND, believe it or not, a scan of your passport. Include a cover note explaining that flights are available but website is not showing availability for a complete itinerary. One or two days later someone will respond saying that they will escalate it to the “concerned” department. Then you have to wait another day or two before someone else calls you. They then book it for you over the phone, they email you an itinerary to check over and if you agree, they take payment right then and there. I got a lovely guy called Diego, really switched on, patient and willing to help. I did three of those in the last three weeks and he’s always the one to call me back. We’re now on a first name basis 😉 Another tip, if you’re going to use part miles part cash (you can buy up to 60% of the miles required for 1.5 cents per mile) always reduce your maximum mile purchase by 3,000 miles. For some reason, they charge 3.3 cents per mile for the last 3,000 which then bumps up the actual average price to 1.6 cents. You can easily illustrate this on the website with the mile counter. Hope you found my tips helpful. With a LifeMiles sale on, now is the time to take advantage of this rare opportunity.
Tell me again. Why is it that star alliance members like Singapore and LH do not like accepting UA miles for their flights.
“Phantom” award space an issue on Avianca?
It shows 3 on their website but I can’t get three to show up on miles & more. I would need to top off my account by quite a bit to book it and I’d prefer not to park miles there or buy miles if it turns out I can’t use them.
Z, I’ve booked 7 Lufthansa First Class flights in the last two weeks and I have not encountered any phantom availability and this has never happened to me in the three years I’ve been using them. Not a guarantee of course but it’s just my experience. If you do buy some, just buy 45% of what you actually need and buy the rest using LifeMiles+Money so if something does go wrong, you won’t end up parking the whole amount required.
@Georges, Thanks, have you ever checked both at the same time and run into this?
I shouldn’t even have used the term “top off” though since I would essentially be buying a decent chunk to do this.
No I haven’t. I do have a bit of Miles and More stashed away and I was keeping them for trips that I wanted to book in advance but now that LM has opened up, I haven’t bothered looking at LH availability. I had a booking to Miami with LH MM and I cancelled it and re-booked it with LM. But I admit, it is strange that LM would have seats that are not available to LH MM but stranger things have happened in this business so nothing surprises me.
What are the fees like when using Asiana Club Miles? It’s only 50k one way or 100k round trip. They are an SPG transfer partner.