For several years Lufthansa has limited first class award availability to partner frequently flyer programs. Space has only been open within 14 days of travel. If you wanted to redeem miles for first class awards farther out, you’ve had to use Lufthansa’s own Miles & More miles (with the exception of a handful of brief glitches).
Right now though Lufthansa seems to be making space available thirty days out to partner airlines, especially on the Chicago – Frankfurt route.
First class operations are currently limited to Boeing 747-8 aircraft. That plane serves Chicago, LAX< Miami, and Newark and San Francisco in the U.S. and also Mexico City. Here's space for (2) passengers over the next month Chicago – Frankfurt: (A couple of dates where there’s both United saver award space Chicago – Miami and Lufthansa first space Miami – Frankfurt are shown as well.)
Award Nexus search of Aeroplan availabiltiy
Some ways to book:
- Avianca charges 87,000 miles each way and is a transfer partner of American Express, Citibank, and Capital One.
- Air Canada Aeroplan charges 100,000 miles each way (up to 6000 flown miles) and is a transfer partner of American Express, Chase, and Capital One.
- United charges about 20% more than Air Canada for the same seats, likely 121,000 miles.
A rare find indeed, hopefully this becomes the new normal.
(HT: One Mile at a Time)
One has to imagine that without business travel – and essentially the end of business travel in the free spending finance industry — First Class loads have to have been decimated.
If this does become the new normal, airlines would retrofit to remove first class cabins.
Without access to the First Class terminal the value is a little weak.
Needs FCT open for it to be worth it.
oh boy, 15 more days!?