by Lufthansa Flyer | Jan 5, 2016 | Fare Sale, Featured, Frankfurt, Lufthansa, Munich, On Board Experience, Passenger Experience |
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…..
by Lufthansa Flyer | Nov 4, 2015 | Contests, Featured, On Board Experience, Passenger Experience, Swiss |
For those of who you are not aware, SWISS offers the opportunity to surprise friends and loved ones with in-flight treats during their SWISS flights.
Known as ‘SWISS Choice’, the program is available on flights that are at least 70 minutes long and anyone can participate. All you need to know are their flight details and you can make the rest of the arrangements on SWISS.com
To publicize the program, SWISS is running a contest that will award the winner their own ‘SWISS Choice’ experience. The winner can choose to take advantage of it for themselves or use the prize to surprise someone else flying on SWISS.
The winner of the contest will have to provide SWISS with the flight information for the flight on which the SWISS Choice will be used. This has to be done at least 4 days ahead of the travel date. The flight of course has to be operated by SWISS. The prize must awarded between December 14 and April 30. The deadline to enter the contest is November 15.
Click here to Enter
Good Luck!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Oct 19, 2015 | Austrian, Featured, On Board Experience, Passenger Experience |
AUSTRIAN has announced that it has begun work to update and upgrade their current Business Class cabin on their Airbus A319, A320, and A321 aircraft. In all, 29 aircraft will feature the new look.
Over the course of the next 2 years, the Business Class cabins for these aircraft will be upgraded with improved seat cushions as well as increased legroom. Currently, the Business Class cabin seat pitch is 30 inches, just at it is for Economy but this will increase to 32 inches. This marks the first time that a narrow body business class cabin will actually have a different seat pitch than the rest of the aircraft’s seats.
Traditionally, short and medium haul Business Class cabins for Austrian (as well as for the Lufthansa Group & most major European airlines) meant that you had the same type of seat as an economy passenger, but the middle seat would be left open giving passengers a bit more room. A curtain hanging from the luggage bins would act as the divider between Business and Economy class seats. For Austrian, this now goes away and in essence they are creating a dedicated Business Class cabin for their narrow body aircraft. However, the middle seat will continue to be left open.
All this new space was found by decreasing the size of storage and galley areas on the aircraft.
At the same time, Austrian also has announced that it will reduce the seat pitch on their A319 and A320 aircraft from 30 inches to 29 inches. According to OS, this brings them in line with European standards but at the same time will also allow Austrian to install an additional row in Economy Class.
