Lufthansa is putting the superjumbo Airbus A380 onto the Denver – Munich route April 30 through September 30th. The plane will also operate from Munich to New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and Delhi.
That’s a lot of airplane with a lot of seats to fill, and award space especially on the Denver route is wide open using miles from partner frequent flyer programs.
The airline’s Airbus A380 has 8 first class, 78 business class, 52 premium economy and 371 economy seats. The Denver flight offers the best space out of all of the A380 routes currently – most days seem to have 9 or more business class award seats available.
The major challenge looking for award space is going to be finding United Airlines connecting space to a Lufthansa A380 gateway. So if you don’t live in Denver, or a city where the plane operates and is offering space, you need to get there. Often that’ll mean an inconvenient United economy flight to connect to business class. Of course you can connect beyond Lufthansa’s Munich hub as well.
I show you this United MileagePlus award calendar not because you should be booking these seats through United, but rather because it’s a quick and dirty way to give you a sense for wide open availability every day.
- Air Canada generally charges 70,000 miles each way for business class between the U.S. and Europe on most Lufthansa routes. Their chart is distance-based and will get you as far as Denver – Munich – Sofia, Bulgaria (but not all the way to Istanbul at that price). You can transfer to Air Canada from Chase, Amex, Capital One and Bilt.
- United Aeroplan it’s a much better deal than United at 88,000 miles each way. You can transfer from Chase or Bilt to United.
- Avianca LifeMiles is quirky. It is charging 69,000 miles for Denver – Munich. Pricing will vary a bit based on your actual destination and whether onward connections are in business or economy. You can transfer from Amex, Citi, Capital One, and Bilt to LifeMiles.
The Airbus A380 isn’t the best Lufthansa business class product. It’s in 2-2-2 configuration. However if you’re looking for family Europe travel you may prefer the less private layout this offers.
Lufthansa hasn’t been releasing much business class award space to partners at all, so this is an unusual windfall.
Alrighty then. I take it back. LH is finally more generous with the award space. May have to pull the trigger on this, even though it is before Allegris is complete. What can I say; I’m a sucker for double-deckers. Saw one of them parked at MNL for maintenance recently, and hoped it’d be back in service soon enough. Here we go!
I saw this a few weeks back and already have IAD-MUC and MUC-IAD, both on the A380, for the spring. If you have the UC card, the price is the old 80K. Good use of UA points. I’m wondering what the best business seat on the old LH A380 is – and front section or back section. Online reviews seem to differ.
100k miles plus $2,262 in fees per person through ANA. Not an appealing choice.
I just signed up for an Air Canada account, but don’t see any business class availability. It keeps directing me to CA version (as opposed to US) of website. If anybody knows how to get it to price business, I would appreciate it!
Aeroplan actively blocks LH award space (most of it anyway) to promote their own crappy and overpriced metal – so dont expect to find any space there.
Did Ben Schlappig write this post?
Cha Ching. Could not find anything from EUR for my around the world trip and this is better than premium economy. Thanks Gary!
Gary,
Is it possible to upgrade a business class award to first class? If so, which currency is best to use and how would I do it? Is it possible to book with miles/points and pay to upgrade at the time of booking or shortly after? Or can I call LH and ask if there is a paid upgrade option that can be utilized in advanced? Thanks for your time and expertise.
As it is the people of Denver have very few award opportunities. Always have to reposition. But once in a while if an opportunity does pop up, its broadcast to the whole wide world.
Thank you for posting this. My husband and I had been thinking about going to Europe over the summer, but hadn’t been able to find any good flights. Now we have two business class tickets to Rome.
For those that did book this as award travel, which program did you go with? Still hoping someone can share definitively the options to opgrade from J to F (if there are any) associated with award tickets on United or Aeroplan on Lufthansa. If someone could spend a couple of minutes to detail, I would appreciate it. Checked Lufthansa’s website, blogs and flyertalk and just want to be certain the details before booking.
@Steve
Since no one else is getting back to you, the answer is often ‘it depends,’ on availability and which program you booked through (LH, UA, AC, etc.). Like, if you used Lufthansa’s Miles & More, then you’d have a better shot at using their platform and their miles to upgrade, but LH may not release First until closer to departure. Sign up for alerts if they allow it. They also sometimes allow bidding for upgrades, even if not currently available. Additionally, LH sometimes sends an offer via email for a paid upgrade (like, cash, not points, using credit card, etc.). You can also literally ask an agent at check-in at the airport on the day of travel, like, “Hey, I’m in Business class, but I am willing to pay for First if it’s available–what would that cost?” If it’s available, they then usually send you over to their ticketing office, depending on the airport, where you complete the transaction–this also depends on how much you’re willing to pay extra (how’s $1,200 sound?). Keep in mind, you may not earn additional status/miles qualifiers on the paid upgrade portion, depending on the program. You would still earn under your original ticket, but if that was a points redemption, that may be nothing, again, depending on the program. Not sure you if care about status earning, though, or just wanted the better seat. Anyway, it’s been a little while for me with LH, so some of this may have changed, but when it works out it’s nice. Good luck to you.
I booked mine on UA. I have lots of UA miles from domestic travel and CCs. The UA website is very easy to use for award bookings.
Thank you, 1990. Appreciate the information. Will prolly take my chances with aeroplan.
Saw this a few days back, worked to figure out the new(ish) United pooling, as 5 roundtrips are 800,000 miles, and I only had 600k in my account. Unfortunately, it takes 3 days of wait time to donate to the pool, and when I looked today, either all are booked and/or LH removed the awards. So, that was maybe a week, or less, that this deal was around. Guess just book it when you see it, you can always cancel the flights with no penalty via UA Mileage Plus
@joel – united points pooling is for redemption on ua metal only