For the first time in a long time, long-haul Lufthansa Business class award seats are now available to members of other Star Alliance partner airlines up to a year in advance!
Based in Germany, Star Alliance member Lufthansa has a 5-star Skytrax rating and offers an excellent Business and First class product on its flights out of Frankfurt and Munich. This latest development is great news for frequent flyers with Star Alliance airlines, as it makes Lufthansa Business class awards much more easily accessible.
Lufthansa usually releases premium cabin award availability on its long-haul flights to members of its own Miles & More frequent flyer program around 359 days out. That’s almost a year in advance. Meanwhile, those wishing to redeem miles with a Star Alliance partner airline have historically had to wait until a fortnight before the flight to access the same premium award seats.
This is no longer the case. Lufthansa Business class awards on some long-haul routes are now for redemption through Star Alliance partner airlines almost a year out. This makes it much easier to book valuable Lufthansa Business class awards using Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, United Mileage Plan miles and even Avianca LifeMiles.
Lufthansa award space is by no means “wide open”. But we did find a reasonable quantity of Lufthansa Business award seats on routes including Beijing-Frankfurt, Hong Kong-Munich, Hong Kong-Frankfurt, Singapore-Frankfurt and Seoul-Munich. Some routes, such as Almaty-Frankfurt even had as many as 5 Business award seats available on some dates. We found less Business class availability overall on routes between Germany and the Americas, but did find some seats on routes such as Munich-Los Angeles and Frankfurt-Bogota.
Unfortunately this recent change to Lufthansa Business class award availability does not affect First class bookings. You’ll still need to wait until two weeks out to book Lufthansa First class awards using the miles of a Star Alliance partner airline. Meanwhile, Lufthansa short-haul Business award seats continue to be available to all partner airlines up to 359 days in advance.
You can use the United and Aeroplan websites to find Lufthansa & Star Alliance award availability.
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