by Lufthansa Flyer | Apr 3, 2014 | Featured, Lufthansa, Miles & More |
‘Meilenschnäeppchen’ or ‘Mileage Bargains’ is a monthly promotion offered by Miles & More that typically discounts award travel by 50%. What is normally a 105,000 mile redemption for a Business Class seat becomes 55,000 miles and a 60,000 mile Economy Class ticket becomes only 30,000 miles! It’s one of the best redemption deals out there for travel between the USA and Europe.
For the month of April, there are nearly 150 destinations available from the US to Lufthansa destinations throughout Europe, Russia and the Mideast with 2 sets of eligible travel dates. One set requires travel to take place between April 8 through mid-May/early June while the second set of options cover travel from August 1 to August 30. The current month’s offerings will expire on April 30, but book sooner than later since these bargains are limited. The sooner you book, the better the chances of you finding the seats.
When you visit the ‘Meilen Schnaeppchen’ website, you’ll see that there is a drop down menu in the top right corner that lets you select country of origin for your travels. You’ll literally have 1000’s of possible combinations to choose from. For example, there are many ‘germanwings’ options for travel within Europe for only 10,000 miles!
If you find yourself short of miles, with no imminent travel plans that would earn miles, you may want to consider applying for the Premier Miles & More World MasterCard so that you can take advantage of future Miles & More deals thanks to the bonus miles you would earn with the card. With the current offer, new cardholders will earn 20,000 miles after an initial purchase and an additional 15,000 miles if a balance is transferred from another card.
Additional perks include a FREE companion ticket after an initial purchase with the card and on each account anniversary date thereafter and there are NO FOREIGN TRANSACTION FEES for using the card abroad. You’ll earn 2 miles per dollar spent booking travel on a Miles & More partner airline and 1 mile per dollar spent on all other purchases. The annual fee is waived if you are a Senator or HON level elite.
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Thank you in advance for your support of LufthansaFlyer.com!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Apr 1, 2014 | Lufthansa |
Since Lufthansa launched BLUE LEGENDS, I’ve had many USA based Blue Legend users email me voicing their disappointment that they could not participate actively when flying on non-Lufthansa operated flights in the USA.
In order to “Check In” for a flight on Blue Legends, a Lufthansa flight number is required which prevented many from participating if they did not know the LH codeshare. With this list of LH codeshare flight numbers, Blue Legend users who fly on United can now ‘check in’ to earn credit towards ‘status’.
Please note that with US Airways’ migration to OneWorld, they will no longer have LH codeshare flight numbers and flights operated by ‘US’ are no longer eligible for Blue Legends.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE APRIL 1,2014 LIST OF LUFTHANSA CODESHARE FLIGHT NUMBERS FOR UNITED OPERATED FLIGHTS.
If you are unfamiliar with Blue Legends, I encourage you to visit the app’s website.
There are a few things to keep in mind with these lists:
Lufthansa does not have a codeshare flight number for every United operated flight.
Lufthansa updates their codeshare flight numbers monthly and I’ll update my list to reflect the changes (I’ll let you know when I’ve updated the pages).
The list only contains the LH codeshare flight number, origin and destination. It does not contain departure or arrival time information. You’ll need to cross reference your own itinerary and match it up to the appropriate LH code share flight number. Google is an excellent resource for this as well.
If you have any questions or need help with Blue Legends, feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment on this post.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Apr 1, 2014 | Business Class, Featured, Lufthansa |
Photo Courtesy Of Paddy-Hagelthorn.com
I first wrote about this a few weeks ago before coming back to BoardingArea.com, but seeing how many new people have discovered ‘LHFlyer’ I thought to revisit what amounts to being a great business class fare opportunity.
In late February we began the process of booking our Safari trip to South Africa for later this year and part of that was to take care of the Airline tickets. I was expecting to have quite a bit of ‘sticker shock’, but what I found was actually a pleasant surprise.
Lufthansa (and a few Star Alliance partners) are offering fares between US gateways and Johannesburg for as low as $5030, which in some cases can be $2000-3000 less than competitor prices. The $5000 fares are widely available from most USA gateways but there is one catch. In order to get this low pricing you must book your ticket to originate and return to a gateway city. If you add a domestic connection, your fare may blossom by over $2000! For example when I booked our tickets, Chicago to Johannesburg via Frankfurt, I wound up paying $5030 per ticket. Had I booked the trip from our home airport, GRR, the fare would scoot up to $7500 per passenger.
Sometimes to take advantage of the best deals you need to be flexible in your travel planning and in our case a minor adjustment saved us thousands. To resolve getting to ORD, I can simply book a couple of round trip tickets for a $400-500 or just redeem some miles to get to and from ORD. I went with the miles option in this case. Renting a car is of course an option but the thought of driving 3 hours after spending 25 hours in transit just sounded like a terrible idea.
Another nice aspect to this fare deal is that the tickets book to ‘Z’ Class which is referred to as ‘Discount Business’ which typically credit 150% of miles flown towards elite status qualification for most Frequent Flyer Programs. I say that this is a nice touch because there is a ‘Deep Discount Business Fare’ known as ‘P’ fares, which would only credit 100% of miles flown. So in this case, both the fare and miles earned are attractive propositions. Make sure you refer to your Frequent Flyer Program to confirm the amount of miles you would earn since there may be minor variances.
Additionally, these fares are flexible to the point that you can build in a stopover for a day in Frankfurt in either direction and the fare remains the same in most cases.
The fares are widely available throughout most of the year except between June and August where limited options exist at these price-points. However from September onward, it’s wide open.
If you are considering booking this fare (or any other), make sure to get Lufthansa’s voucher that will reduce your ticket by $50. The voucher offer ends on April 3 and is valid for travel booked for late April through mid May.
