It has now been nine days since Lufthansa cut off all first class award space to its Star Alliance partners. It’d be one thing if Miles & More members also were cut off from first class award space, but the situation is a bit more complicated.
Comparing Lufthansa First Class Award Availability With Miles & More Vs. Partners
Lufthansa has not formally announced whether it is permanently blocking first class award space to partners like Air Canada Aeroplan or United MileagePlus or wether the sudden disappearance of space is linked to the peak summer travel season or preemptive concern over looming industry action.
I figured it would be helpful to take a look at the Lufthansa First Class space Miles & More it is offering its own members to see what is available, if anything at all.
One complicating matter is that Lufthansa has gone fully dynamic in the pricing of awards on Austrian, Lufthansa, and SWISS flights, which means, as near as I can tell, there is no “saver” and “standard” space. Instead, the price (and change fee) mimics that of a revenue ticket, with many tickets carrying extremely punitive cancellation fees.
What I found, when logged in from my Miles & More account (no status), is that First Class space is available, but extremely limited and quite expensive when it is available.
For example, Boston (BOS) – Munich (MUC), operated by an A380-800, used to be one of the easiest first class routes to book award space. But I did not find any space at all.
I did find space from Chicago (ORD) – Frankfurt (FRA) on many dates, at a cost of 179,011 miles + USD 1,529.00 per ticket (plus a 697 USD fee to cancel the “basic” first class ticket)…a huge “devaluation” from before Miles & More went revenue-based on the redemption side (and quite a difference than the 100,000 Aeroplan miles plus about USD 40 in fees from Aeroplan…).
I saw no space between Los Angeles and Frankfurt or Munich (the calendar indicated space at 199,000 one-way, but each date I searched had no space available).
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s not like the cheap last-minute first class award space we’ve had access to for years using partner miles is available to Miles & More members. Instead, space is much more restricted and that may be why Miles & More decided it was not going to make anything available to partners.
It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary or permanent change, but it’s not like Lufthansa has opened the floodgates to its own members. I don’t know whether that is good news or bad…
CONCLUSION
For years, the beauty of Lufthansa First Class awards was that a seat might appear close to departure for booking on a partner like Aeroplan or LifeMiles. It was not cheap, but it was attainable and, considering the ground experience in Frankfurt and Munich, often a very good value. What Miles & More now shows is a very different world: nearly 180,000 miles one-way plus over $1,500 in fees and a costly cancellation penalty.
So yes, Lufthansa may still be making some First Class seats available to its own members. But if this is the replacement for partner award space, it is not much comfort…and also may explain why partner access was cut off, much like Emirates did to Alaska Airlines.
I still hope this is temporary and partner access returns. But nine days in, this no longer feels like a brief glitch.
The era of booking Lufthansa First Class with partner miles may not be officially dead, but it is looking very ill…
top image: Lufthansa
I just wanna transfer a nominal amount of Amex MR points and get caviar and a rubber ducky… is it that hard to ask?!
(Sarcasm front needed) It wouldn’t be if these poor European airlines didn’t have to pay self important people for their minor inconveniences when maintenance issues happen.
Bahaha!
This is too alarmist – the dates you have searched do not have O inventory / saver. For now Lufthansa does not seem to be releasing I/O inventory to any program (including its own) even when space is available T-7 which indeed would be a change. This eliminates partner availability of First Class Awards. This does seem temporary for now I think
My concern is that LH won’t even release or use I/O for its LH, LX, OS metal…
For example, I’ve booked several LX and LH transatlantic I-class seats for clients this week via MileagePlus or Aeroplan, but that space has not shown up on Miles & More…instead, I’ve observed that brutal M&M pricing tied to revenue fares (meanwhile, SN and LO transatlantic flights are still widely available for 62.5K miles with a much more generous cancellation policy). I don’t get it…like BOS-ZRH for 60K Aeroplan + 30 EUR or 103K Miles & More + 1500 EUR…it just strikes me as strange that LH would even bother to release space to its partners when the pricing is so different.
I have noticed that LX SN and OS seem unaffected – as in I inventory is still being released also to partners. Idk what’s going on with LH, I know that OS is now blocking I inventory close in for partners and was blocking award inventor entirely for a little while for partners, but in the meantime at least X is available again close to departure.
My best guess is that LH is experimenting or setting up something similar.
Is Lufthansa actually selling these seats? They do get paid (by the partner airline) when someone books an award seat via a partner award program. Maybe their internal stats show that selling last-minute discounted upgrades is more profitable (but I have my doubts).
LH’s mileage program is nowhere near as engaging or profitable as United’s (and to a lesser extent Aeroplan’s). EU carriers can’t make much money off credit card revenue in Europe, and few foreign carriers have had success breaking into the US credit card market (my guess is that AF and AC do reasonably well).
This move appears to be short sighted, as LH is killing off a reliable means of filling premium seats when they may otherwise fly empty, especially during the off-peak parts of the year.
My concern, as LH has done with LX and SQ has done for years, is that they decide they’d rather have the seat empty than the approximately $1,000 say Air Canada must pay Lufthansa for an O Class seat.
if you search a few times, Miles and more will block you out completely and you can’t search anymore because they thikn you are a bot or spam or whatever. If you contact the customer service, they will say there is a glitch and one can book only via telephone. Such a stupid company
Well I was doing some heavy searching so I guess it’s good that I give it a few days off…?
All I can say is I’m thankful that I got to ride up front a couple of times using my Chase points via UA. One was even on a 747 with only 4 people in an 8 person cabin.
Even got the car ride to the F lounge when we parked at a remote stand.
Very fun.
“plus a 697 USD fee to cancel the “basic” first class ticket”…Whether an award or not, this degree of a cancellation fee almost creates moral hazard. Does LH want someone who wakes up feeling ill the morning of a flight to feel compelled to fly?
Excellent point.
What about business? Having a much harder time finding award space in J especially close in. Used to be easy but was browsing this week on partner awards (AmericaS-FRA/MUC) and all I could find was 1 day GRU-FRA and SJO-FRA and MEX-FRA.
Very odd that no J award space to USA close in on any flights, although they’ve done that before.
I see this too – but it’s odd that I am seeing “I” class bookable with UA or AC but the same I-class does not show with LH.
LH has not released a formal, public announcement regarding this sudden and potentially permanent halt, but industry experts point to three primary drivers:
* Protecting Premium Cabin Exclusivity: LH has been rolling out its highly anticipated, ultra-premium Allegris First Class suites. The airline likely wants to keep these extremely limited seats exclusive to its highest-paying customers and top-tier elites.
* The “SWISS” Playbook: LH’s subsidiary, LX, has long blocked all partner programs from accessing its first-class cabin, reserving it strictly for Miles & More Senator and HON Circle loyalists. LH appears to finally be adopting this exact structure.
* The Rise of Award Trackers: The extreme popularity of automated award search engines (like seats.aero) made it incredibly easy for travelers to poach last-minute seats the second they dropped. Airlines globally have retaliated against this automated draining of inventory by adding hard restrictions.
… And if you still want to experience the First Class Terminal in FRA, your only reliable pathway is through LH’s own Miles & More program. However, this route is highly punitive for North American travelers. Miles & More recently transitioned to dynamic award pricing, resulting in staggering costs. Furthermore, Miles & More does not partner with major U.S. credit card transferable points currencies, making those miles notoriously difficult to accumulate organically.
I hit some interesting things with Lufthansa lately:
Late last week my wife and I flew back to the USA on Lufthansa first class on an award booked last year. The 747 had four seats empty out of eight. No space was offered to partners for the empty seats for whatever reason.
While I was in The First Class Terminal I asked for their help to rebook a first class award that had been downgraded from first class to business due to an equipment change. I wanted to fly into any non-western USA airport in first class for the same price since it was Lufthansa’s fault that things changed, not mine. The personal assistant in The Terminal spent 20 minutes on the phone but couldn’t get Lufthansa to budge at all, saying that it was strictly a Miles & More issue. So I’m hosed and sitting on a lot of near-worthless Lufthansa miles. Moral here, beware even confirmed Lufthansa bookings.
I also looked at Seats. aero to check availability and found something incredibly strange: Lufthansa does offer first class awards through M&M on a few flights but ONLY flying from the USA to Europe, not the reverse. Depending on where you’re flying from in Europe that can double the cost in miles plus over a grand in BS fees and taxes. There’s obviously some reason Lufthansa is doing things this way but I can’t figure out why.
The obvious Lufthansa desired result is to pay cash for first
Any idea if Lufthansa will still honor upgrades from D to F using UA PlusPoints? I’ve done this several times over the years.
It’s an excellent question and one I hope to put to the test…