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 | Oct 22, 2015 | Featured, Passenger Experience, United |
United is running a 2-3 day miles sale that provides a fair deal for those who need to top off their balances for award redemption.
Until October 23, Mileage Plus members can receive up to an 80% miles bonus based on the amount of miles purchased.
The schedule is as follows:
Buy 5,000 to 19,000 miles and you’ll get a 25% bonus (Approx. 2.8 cents per mile).
Buy 20,000 to 29,000 miles and you’ll get a 50% bonus (Approx. 2.3 cents per mile).
Buy 30,000 to 80,000 miles, and you’ll get an 80% bonus (Approx. 1.9 cents per mile).
Why do I bring up this offer? Simply because using United Mileage Plus miles for Business or First Class award travel on Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian or Brussels is one of the best redemption opportunities provided by Mileage Plus.
So if you are a few thousand miles away from having enough to visit the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, here’s your chance to bridge the gap! Remember, there are new Ducks to be had!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Sep 16, 2015 | Austrian, Cargo, Corporate, Featured, Lufthansa, Passenger Experience |
As part of their ongoing ‘7:1: Our Way Forward’ campaign, Lufthansa has announced plans to streamline its operation, eliminate redundancies among the group’ airlines and reorganize into 3 operating units.
Plans call for Lufthansa Group to organize itself into 3 operating divisions:
Lufthansa Group Mainline: This unit will be comprised of the airline’s mainline carriers including SWISS, Austrian and Lufthansa.
Eurowings Group: This unit will focus on all of LH Group’s low cost carrier (LCC) operations including JUMP, Germanwings and Eurowings.
Aviation Companies: This unit will include Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo and Skychefs and other subsidiaries.
The objective with this reorganization is to better align business units so that they can benefit from mutual operating efficiencies and to provide their respect customers with a simplified way in working with Lufthansa.
As it stands now, each of the mainline carriers has their own policies and procedures, fare structures, etc. With the revamped units, we’ll see a better consistency across the airlines which should help improve the passenger experience.
With the change in structure, we should see a much more efficient and responsive airline. For example, LH currently has over ‘700 decision making units’ and 47 Human Resources units. Overlap and excess such as this are the key focus of the initiative.
As far as the bottom line is concerned, Lufthansa expects a savings of over 500 million Euros annually once the transition is complete in 2019.
