Lufthansa Miles & More offers a great value on United Airlines redemptions within the USA, particular in business class (35K r/t). The downside is that most partner flights, including United, must be booked by telephone. Like many things German, working hours are limited and forget about Sunday. Sort of. While the US call center maintains very limited working hours from 8am to 8pm ET Monday-Friday, if you ever find you need to book late or on a Saturday or Sunday, you do have a couple English-speaking alternatives: the Hong Kong and Australia call centers.
The Hong Kong call center is open 7 days per week from 9am to 7pm and is 12hrs ahead of US East Coast Time.
+852 2868 23 13
| Monday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Tuesday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Wednesday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Thursday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Friday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Saturday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
| Sunday | 09:00 – 19:00 |
The Australia call center is also open 7 days per week from 8am to 7pm and is 14 hours ahead of US East Coast Time.
+61 1300 655 727
| Monday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Tuesday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Wednesday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Thursday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Friday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Saturday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Sunday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
| Holiday | 08:00 – 19:00 |
I have found the staff at both call centers are friendly albeit not overly competent, the Australian staff has far superior English skills, but I do almost all after-hours bookings with the Hong Kong Call Center. Why? The Australian Call Center charges a 20AUD service fee per ticket to issue an award while the Hong Kong call center charges no booking fee. Note also that the U.S. call center (800 581 6400) also has no telephone booking fee.
If you are connecting (say flying EWR-MCO-LAX instead of EWR-LAX direct) you have to spoon-feed the agents the routing – agents are not at all proactive in looking for anything with connections but will not protest if you help them find the flights you want, one at a time.
Lufthansa does not impose close-in booking fees, which makes Miles & More even more attractive for domestic travel. Though not nearly as generous as it once was, there is a good chance you can find award space from about seven days before travel on United, especially in premium cabins, if you are flexible on routing. United charges a $100 close-in booking fee and 50K miles for a r/t business class ticket from, say, Los Angeles to New York, while Lufthansa charges only 35K miles r/t for business class on the same flight without the $100 close-in booking fee.
Application Link: Lufthansa Miles and More MasterCard with 50,000 Bonus Miles
The Lufthansa Miles & More MasterCard from Barclays currently has a 50,000-mile sign-up bonus: 20,000 miles after your first purchase and 30,000 more miles after spending $5,000 on the card within 90 days. Other benefits of the card include an annual companion ticket and no foreign transaction fee. The $79 annual fee is only waived for Senator and HON members.
I carry this card in my wallet purely for domestic redemptions on United – being able to book last-minute domestic tickets without exorbitant fees is the key value to Miles & More.
Is it really 35K from mainland US to Hawaii? I thought was more expensive since Hawaii is in a higher award zone, unless the domestic rule still apply.
@LH4116: No, US mainland to Hawaii is 40K one-way in business or 20K one-way in coach. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.