Lufthansa announced that it has begun to roll out a new program that allows passengers to upgrade almost any fare class offered by Lufthansa on certain long haul flights.   The upgrades are at a fixed price and are subject to availability and capacity control.

What this means is that passengers can pay a fixed price and move up from Economy to Premium Economy or Business,  Premium Economy to Business, and Business to First Class.

What is nice about the program is that you will earn miles based on the fare class you upgrade to.  HOWEVER, rules regarding refunds, rebooking, baggage, etc. are based on your original fare class, NOT the upgraded class.

 

For now, this program is limited to the following routes:

• Munich-Los Angeles
• Munich-Seoul
• Frankfurt-Toronto
• Frankfurt-Shanghai
• Frankfurt-New Delhi

 

If this pilot program goes well, Lufthansa will expand the program to cover their entire long haul timetable.

If you are traveling on any of these routes, you’ll see the upgrade icon when you pull up your reservation on Lufthansa.com.   You’ll be given a choice of upgrading with miles, cash, or a combination of the 2.    Please note that you can only upgrade your ticket up to 4 hours prior to the scheduled departure.   Inside of 4 hours, you will not be able to upgrade.

 

As mentioned earlier, this program is available for most fare classes however there are a handful of exceptions.  Here is the breakdown of which fare classes are eligible to be upgraded:

Economy to Premium Economy (N Fare):   All Economy fares are eligible except for X fares.

Economy to Business Class (Z Fare):  All Economy fares are eligible except for K, L, T, X.

From Premium Economy to Business (Z Fare):  All Premium Economy fares except for R.

From Business Class to First Class (A Fare):  All Business Class fares except for I (Award Fare).

 

 

Here is the breakdown of costs depending on the route and fare classes involved for the upgrade (prices below are 1-way):

The Fine Print:

As with any program such as this, there are rules and restrictions that will govern your ability to upgrade.  Upgrades are eligible under the following conditions:

        The booking must be confirmed and ticketed.

Applies only to Lufthansa operated flights and Lufthansa flight numbers.  In other words, codeshare ticketing is not eligible for upgrades.

You can not upgrade on a flight for which you are already checked in.

There are a few other minor rules that you can find here.

H/T to FlyerTalk’s Oliver2002 for putting the news in my inbox this morning…..