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 | Jul 28, 2015 | Featured, United |
United is offering a quick 3 day sale that provides you with 50% more miles when you buy award miles for your account.
The sale is set to end at midnight on July 30, 2015.
To take advantage of the offer, click here to be taken to the Mileage Plus log-in screen.
You can buy up to 100,000 miles from this promo (you’ll receive 150,000 total miles).
These opportunities are usually worthwhile if you need to top off your accounts in order to redeem for Business or First Class travel on Lufthansa or another LH Group airline.
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 29, 2015 | Featured, Passenger Experience, United |
Last week when returning from a trip to Europe, I had an experience that was relatively new to me but perhaps not to others. As you can probably deduce from the title of this post it has something to do with United.
Let me give you a bit of context as to what happened…..
As I mentioned, last week I was returning from Europe aboard Lufthansa’s LH432 to Chicago. The trip started quite nicely after being upgraded at the gate in Frankfurt from Premium Economy to Business and the flight was as always, too short.
With LH432, I had about an hour to make my connection to a United flight to home in GRR. We landed on time, my bag was the third one off the belt and things couldn’t have gone more smoothly.
Even to the point that though PreCheck was closed at this time of day in ORD’s Terminal 2, when the TSA agent heard by Boarding Pass give off the 3-beep alarm, he let me proceed as though the PreCheck lane was open. Great! Finally a nice TSA experience. At this point my flight should have started boarding and I had 30 minutes to make a 5-10 minute walk. Perfect.
So, as I approach gate F17 in ORD, it was United’s turn to help me through the process and get me home to my Wife and Jack Russells; and thats where we enter the Bizarro World……
As I came to the gate, I noticed that the door was open and boarding was supposedly to have had started 10-15 minutes ago. Not being sure if boarding had started or not, I come to the podium and asked one of the gate agents quite simply: ‘Have you started boarding for Grand Rapids yet?’
‘Check your DAMN Boarding Pass for the boarding time’
Yep, that was the reply…..’Check your DAMN Boarding Pass for the boarding time’, to which I countered that according to the BP, boarding should have started so thats why I asked.
‘Your Boarding Pass will tell you when you will board’
Bravo, madam gate agent….bravo.
It took quite a bit of self control to not drop the expletives trying to force themselves from my mouth, I simply shook my head and walked away. I figured at this point if I escalated the interaction, she was just ‘bitch’ enough to find a reason to not let me board. Fine.
Ultimately boarding did start, albeit 20 minutes after my Boarding Pass told me it would and I did extract some minor bit of revenge when she called Boarding Group 1 and the look on her face when I approached, was somewhat more valuable than a Greek Drachma.
And of course, United couldn’t figure out in an hour how to get my bag on my flight to GRR, but I’ll let that one go…. 🙂
After all, Jeff is far busier marching in parades with rainbow flags than he is ensuring that his managers are putting together the best staff possible at his most important hub.
So, anyone else come across these Bizarro gate agents in your travels?
PS…
For those that care, I did send a note sharing the experience to the 1kvoice@United.com email address…..The canned scripted reply was exactly what I expected:
Thank you LH Flyer for being a valuable customer…blah blah blah..
We’re sorry you had a bad experience….blah blah blah.
We work hard every day to make sure passengers like you have great experiences with us….blah blah blah.
We hope to see you on a future United flight…. blah blah blah.
………I wish I can believe even the fake sincerity…. 🙂
by Lufthansa Flyer | Mar 21, 2015 | Featured, United |
Just a reminder amid all of this strike talk…..
United’s MileagePlus sale ends on Monday, March 23. This sale discounts mile purchases by up to 50% which is a fairly attractive deal especially if you want to redeem ‘MP’ miles for travel on Lufthansa, SWISS, Brussels or Austrian!
With last year’s devaluation it now take more miles to redeem for travel on LH group airlines but a sale like this is a great equalizer. In fact, I loaded up during this sale because my MileagePlus account qualified for a 50% discount.
Apparently the amount of the discount can vary between 25 and 50% but most offers that I’ve seen for others that I’ve helped during this sale have yielded a 40 or 50% discount. You are allowed to buy up to 150,000 miles. Also, please be aware that these are ‘Award Miles’ and do not count towards status or spending levels.
Remember, the sale ends in 2 days. If you are short a few miles for an award redemption a deal like this is about as good as you’ll find so take advantage while you can and enjoy your LH group flights 🙂 !
by Lufthansa Flyer | Feb 10, 2015 | Airlines, Featured |
United is running a short promo for the purchase of miles until February 16.
Depending on the amount of miles you purchase for your Mileage Plus account, you can save up to 40% when compared to their normal prices.
At 40%, it is about as good as a deal as we’ve seen from United in quite some time when it comes to purchasing award miles. The best part of the deal? You can use the miles for travel on Lufthansa and take the sting out of the devaluation that took place recently that impacted the amount of miles that would be needed to redeem for Lufthansa operated flights.
The offer is not fantastic as far as using this to buy the bulk of the miles towards a Business Class or First Class ticket, but if you are within a few thousand miles this promo can certainly make a difference!
The specifics of the deal are as follows:
Miles must be purchased by February 16, 2015
Purchases of 15,000 to 39,000 will receive a 25% discount (approximately 2.8 cents per mile including taxes).
Purchases of 40,000 miles or more will receive a 40% discount (approximately 2.3 cents per mile including taxes).
Purchased miles DO NOT count towards Status Levels.
