Lufthansa boasts one of the world’s best First class products. But booking a Lufthansa First class award with frequent flyer points can be challenging.
The Opportunity
Lufthansa, based in Germany, has one of the world’s best First class products. You won’t find the bling, bells and whistles of the Middle Eastern carriers… rather, Lufthansa is renowned for its understated luxury. The service is second-to-none, and this extends to the ground as well as on board. The First class lounge in Frankfurt is superb and ground services include private chauffer transfers from the lounge to your aircraft.
The challenge with redeeming points for Lufthansa First class is that award seats are only released to partner airlines 14 days in advance. Subject to award availability, you can book a seat using Lufthansa Miles & More miles from 359 days (almost one year) in advance. But if you’re an Australian-based flyer, chances are you don’t have any Miles & More miles. As it happens, Miles & More awards are also quite expensive.
You can use points or miles in any other Star Alliance frequent flyer program to book Lufthansa flights. But premium cabin award seats on long-haul flights are generally only released to partner airlines a fortnight before the flight. This makes it difficult to plan ahead.
When planning to book a Lufthansa First class award, we recommend checking for award availability on flights 14 days from today. There is often a pattern to award seat releases. So if seats are being released on your route 14 days from today, chances are that a seat will also become available 14 days ahead of the date you actually wish to book.
There is a risk that Lufthansa won’t always release the seats you want, so ensure you have a back-up plan. This could mean purchasing a refundable ticket with another airline. It also pays to be flexible. For example, search 14 days in advance for flights between Germany and Asia, or Germany and the United States… rather than limiting your search to just the Frankfurt-Singapore or Frankfurt-New York routes. Even if there are no seats to New York, for example, you might find availability to Boston.
Which frequent flyer program should I use to book Lufthansa flights?
You can book Lufthansa award seats using most Star Alliance frequent flyer programs. These include Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, United Mileage Plus and Aegean Miles&Bonus.
Beware that Avianca LifeMiles members may not have access to the same award availability as other Star Alliance airlines. If you’re planning to buy miles to book a Lufthansa First class award, we recommend using the United Mileage Plus program.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is generally a good option. Redemptions are fair value and you can transfer points from many Australian credit cards to KrisFlyer. Some award sweet spots with KrisFlyer include:
- Frankfurt to/from Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jeddah or Riyadh costs 60,000 KrisFlyer miles in First class (and Business class on these routes costs just 25,000 KrisFlyer miles)
- Europe to/from South Africa costs 70,000 KrisFlyer miles in First class
- Europe to/from India costs 84,000 KrisFlyer miles in First class
- Singapore to/from North America (via Frankfurt) costs 135,000 KrisFlyer miles in First class
The Facts
- Currency: Any Star Alliance frequent flyer program
- Airline: Lufthansa
- Route: Any
- Class of travel: First
- Cost: Varies by frequent flyer program
- Availability: Moderate, but Lufthansa premium seats are only released to partner airlines 14 days before the flight
- How to book: Varies by frequent flyer program
Would you like help using your frequent flyer points?
Frequent Flyer Concierge offers a personalised service designed to take the hard work out of redeeming your frequent flyer points!
The Concierge experts can help you to find the perfect flights using your points. Just let the team know how many points you have and where you would like to go, and they’ll find reward flights to meet your needs.
Having trouble finding and booking reward seats?
Our Frequent Flyer Concierge is here to help!
