by Lufthansa Flyer | Feb 27, 2014 | Airlines |
Lufthansa has unveiled a new look to their website for passengers booking travel from the USA. The new online booking interface improves upon the previous version by being more graphical and providing more information during the booking process than was previously made available.
Some of the highlights include being able to see fares for 3 days before and 1 day after your planned travel dates which will let you see if there are more attractive fares for leaving a bit earlier or later. No longer do we have to cross reference a grid!
The new graphics also make it much easier to interpret some rules and conditions of the fare such as the amount of miles that you will earn, baggage allowance and whether or not fees are assessed for canceling or rebooking seats.
With the new launch, Lufthansa also allows you to pick premium seats in economy that may offer more leg room or have other advantages (bulkhead, front of cabin, etc) and pay for them at time of booking. According to Lufthansa they will also begin to offer ‘Online Chat’ services if you need to ‘speak’ to a reservation specialist during the booking process.
Here is a brief walk through of the new booking interface:
After entering your origin, destination and dates from Lufthansa’s main page, you are brought to this view that shows you the various class options as well as variable travel dates. You’ll notice that icons have replaced text that was prevalent in the previous booking interface. If you run your pointer over any of the icons, additional information will be provided in a pop-up. The new look makes it easier to take in a lot of information with just a glance.
Scrolling down after picking your outbound leg, you are given options for the return flights.
After confirming your flights on the first page, continuing on will bring you to the second page which summarizes your itinerary. This is the top half of the screen.
The bottom half provides a very easy to understand seat selection chart. Since this is a Business Class booking there are no premium seats that would cost more. Had this been an Economy booking, you would see premium seat options and their costs.
After review and seat selection you are brought to the screens that require your personal information, payment details, etc.
The bottom half of the page asks for more personal details.
In all, I think this is a nice improvement over the previous version and more enhancements will be introduced over time. What I really like is the use of icons to replace text to provide certain information and the fact that each icon can be highlighted to get further details. In my opinion it looks a lot cleaner and is more intuitive.
If you have any questions, feedback or challenges with the new look let me know!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Feb 26, 2014 | Airlines |
Not to be outdone by Lufthansa’s 2-day sale to Europe, SWISS has launched their own fare sale but it is only in place today, February 26. The fare sale covers travel for the month of March.
Similar to the LH offer, SWISS is offering very attractive fares from their US Gateways. Most fares range between the high $600 range (New York/Geneva) and mid-$700s for the bulk of SWISS’ European destinations. Additionally, great fares are available from Chicago – with the best one being a $574 ticket to Istanbul!
The west coast is involved as well, with most fares being in the mid to upper $800 range. This includes San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The fare sale does extend to some non-European SWISS destinations with attractive fares to Africa and the Middle East. Johannesburg has been popular with the LH Group as of late, and SWISS’ deal is only $850 from NYC to JNB.
As I mentioned, this is a ONE DAY fare sale only, and availability is somewhat limited. These fares are available for Sunday through Thursday departures and returns. You will not find these low fares for weekend travel dates.
Keep in mind that other airlines including Edelweiss, United and Lufthansa may operate some of these flights. As far as earning frequent flyer miles, what you earn will be determined by the airline that you fly. In some cases you may only earn 50% of miles travel or none at all in some cases. So please check with you FF program to see what you’ll earn before you book.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Feb 25, 2014 | Airlines |
Lufthansa is on bit of a roll as far as fare sales are concerned. In my last post I talked about the great fares from the USA to Johannesburg and now Lufthansa tops that deal with a sub $500 fare between New York and Istanbul!
We had a chance to visit Istanbul 2 years ago and its on our list of ‘Must See Again’ destinations. It is a fantastic and diverse city that is worth seeing! You can see my trip reports on Istanbul by using the search box on my site (I’d list the links here but it is near impossible to do via iPad!). Simply type in “Istanbul” and you’ll see the list of my reports.
Act quickly on this one since the fare sale is in place for only 2 days. Previously, the lowest fares that I’ve seen between this city pair as been in the mid $600 range. So this truly is a deal to take advantage of!!
The fare sale is valid for travel in March and tickets must be purchased by February 26.
In addition to this awesome fare, there are other great fares tied into this promo. For example, fares from the west coast to several European destinations are all under $1000!
I’m in the middle of a busy day today so I don’t have much time to expand on this sale, but please visit the Lufthansa Fare Sale website (the link above) for more information and additional deals!
