It has been more than a month since Lufthansa suddenly restricted partner first class awards. As that lockout continues, the news is even more grim: business class awards have also been heavily restricted.
Lufthansa Continues To Restrict Partner First Class Awards, But Also Business Class Awards
I’ve written about the elimination of Lufthansa First Class awards made available to partners like Air Canada Aeroplan and United MileagePlus. On June 1, 2026 a switch was flipped and all space was turned off. Now into July, the “drought” continues, though Lufthansa has refused to clarify what is going on.
While many have focused on the lack of first class awards (which until this point have been one oft he most achievable aspiration awards in the entire miles and points game), it appears to me (based on heavy research when writing this story) that Lufthansa has also restricted business class awards to partners as well.
Check for close-in business class awards which were once fairly easy to score from cities like Boston, Chicago, Montreal, or Toronto and they are gone…regardless of how many seats are still for sale. Economy class is available, but no business class (same on Austrian and SWISS). I could not find a a single day on a single route within a week of travel that had award space made available to Aeroplan or MileagePlus.
So what are we to make of all this? Here are my thoughts and why I still have some hope that this the policy might loosen in the future.
- Lufthansa appears to have cut off all close-in “O” (saver first class) and “I” (saver business class) space to partners, but the poor availability for even its own members suggest that this is not simply a way to preserve space for Miles & More passengers
- The lack of award space cannot be reduced to “full flights” during the busy summer travel season, because flights are going out half full or even mostly empty in first class
- It might be that Lufthansa looked at what United Airlines did (restricting most longhaul business class space to MileagePlus members) and thought, “Why shouldn’t we do something similar?” but it also might be that since Lufthansa charges so much more in both miles and taxes/fees than its partners, that it did this to close a huge gap between Miles & More and its partners.
- That gap may be remedied by dynamic pricing on Lufthansa flights – we could see mileage prices rise even higher when redeeming with Aeroplan and MileagePlus in exchange for a comeback, similar to the high prices Aeroplan charges for Emirates flights
Until Lufthansa definitively says that this space has deliberately been cut off, I will remain hopeful that it might return as Lufthansa figures out its own pricing with Miles & More. If we start seeing a lot more availability with Miles & More, than perhaps all hope is lost, but as long as Lufthansa’s own members also cannot access the “saver” space, it sill is possible that this is temporary.
But however you slice it, it’s bad news for miles and points aficionados…cutting off last-minute business and first class space is a huge blow that has been felt by me and many others this summer.
CONCLUSION
It’s still unclear what is going on yet and I’ll still hold out hope until all hope is lost…but the Lufthansa Group partner award space problem transcends first class awards and also impacts business class awards…they are all gone. Let’s hope things will loosen up a bit this autumn when the summer travel rush is over and flights are going out with open seats, but this indeed may be the end of not only first class awards, but of close-in business class awards on careers like Austrian, Lufthansa, and SWISS.
image: Lufthansa
“The lack of award space cannot be reduced to “full flights” during the busy summer travel season.”
Indeed. Based on my informal tracking, if anything, close in F space is greater in the summer. The “busy summer travel season” skews to families typically traveling in Y and maybe C. Business travel declines in summer as Europeans use their 4,593 annual days of vacation.
Apart from that, Miles and More has uniquely stingy earning opportunities in the US. Can you advise whether this is true in Europe as well? If so, there truly is no glut of Miles and More, which should increase the number of available unsold seats (which are textbook spoiling inventory).
As an EU-based M&M basic member, I do see a lot of availability for flights to North Amercia in C, including decent availability on Lufthansa Group metal (Lufty, Swiss, Austrian, Discover, Edelweiß) in Saver. However, from what I have seen, you must book it round-trip from Europe, not from NA or oneway. One ways from NA are strictly non-saver that come with steep cancellation fees.
As for allegris, these seats are rare (likely also due to the hype) but there’s good availability on non-Allegris flights.
@Max, what are your thoughts on this whole thing? I suppose it can be annoying to see so many Americans in Lufthansa First and Business class using their miles, but I feel like LH is being stingy because it can get away with charging so much more via M&M for the same thing….the new pricing is a major devaluation and LH doesn’t want to make the pain even worse by rubbing in the bad value to LH’s own loyal flyers.