By the time this post is published I’ll be sitting in Frankfurt after (hopefully) another spectacular Lufthansa First Class flight. Specifically, I hope that I’m taking a quick nap in the incredible Lufthansa First Class Terminal!
The reason I held up publishing this post is because this Lufthansa First Class flight was a surprise. My girlfriend and I are on our way to Cape Town via Europe and she had no idea we were flying Lufthansa First. She knew that we were flying on Lufthansa, but I told her we were in Business because it was difficult to find First Class availability. That part, wasn’t a lie. Finding availability was difficult, but it can be made much easier if you know what to look for.
So, today, I wanted to walk through how to book Lufthansa First Class with Avianca LifeMiles. Booking Lufthansa First Class with Avianca LifeMiles represents an incredible value, but as I found, is much more difficult than other programs.
Finding Lufthansa First Class Availability
It’s often tough to book Lufthansa First Class awards because Lufthansa doesn’t make their award space available to partner programs until 14-days prior to departure. So, if you are looking to lock down flights a year from now, this probably isn’t for you. If you’re a little more daring, the next step is to begin searching for award space exactly 14 days out. Doing this could result in you snagging a seat quickly which results in significantly less stress…
To find award space I generally start with United’s Award Search tool. United does a great job at showing partner award space when available. Searching on United’s website first will give you a feel for what’s available.
Again, if you find the space you are looking for and have the necessary United miles, you could stop here. However, 113,000 miles is a bit pricy for Lufthansa First Class. In that case, let’s continue.
Another option to search for Lufthansa First Class is through Aeroplan. Aeroplan generally shows the same space as United, but as you can see, these awards cost fewer miles. The same exact award costs just 70,000 miles instead of 113,500. However, Aeroplan imposes significantly higher fuel surcharges. In the above example, you’ll pay about $800 USD in addition to the miles required. This is a fine option, but we can still do better.
Finding Lufthansa First Class Availability Through Avianca LifeMiles
If you’ve managed to find space on either United of Aeroplan there is a good chance you will find the same space on Avianca’s website. In this case, I found the space from Washington D.C. on both and it showed up with Avianca. If it only shows up with one, it could be phantom space that isn’t actually available. However, in this case, the space exists and I found it with Avianca.
Furthermore, Avianca charges less miles than United and less in fuel surcharges than Aeroplan. It’s basically like getting the best of both worlds. In this case, the flight from the East Coast to Frankfurst costs just 87,000 miles and $5.60. However, you can actually do even better than that if you connect to another European city.
I’m not exactly sure why this works, but by connecting to another European city you can actually save about 5,000 miles on an award booking. I suspect other routings, etc. could result in even more savings, but for now, I just want to point it out as an opportunity to save miles.
Once you’ve found the space, simply click on the boxes of the flights you want and select continue. From there you can fill out your passenger information and pay for your tickets. When I bought our tickets recently it took nearly a minute to process, so please be patient on the processing page. However, the first time I tried booking these seats the booking failed and the space dried up… “that’s Avianca LifeMiles for ya”
What If No Space Is Available?
Now, if you’re 2 weeks out from your trip and you’re not finding space, all hope is not yet lost. If that is the case, I’d recommend going directly to Lufthansa’s website and buying a ticket outright. Kidding… But in all seriousness, that’s the route I take. See, when buying a ticket with Lufthansa, the airline allows you to see a Seat Map of the aircraft. Looking at this seat map will help you understand if the cabin is booked or if Lufthansa is being stingy.
When clicking on the “Seatmap” link, you’ll find a picture of the current seat availability. In this case, all but one seat in the First Class cabin on the aircraft is available.
In this example, it is absolutely no surprise that Lufthansa has First Class award seats available just a week prior to departure. However, not all Seatmaps are going to look like this. If you see the below, chances are that extra seat or two won’t come available prior to departure.
In any event, if you desperately are trying to get that last award seat, my only advice is to search and search, and search again. If you absolutely want that seat, search every hour until departure, you never know what will happen! Lastly, always have a backup plan. If that seat doesn’t become available, you don’t want to miss out on your trip entirely.
For what it’s worth, I just searched the above and sure enough, no award seats were available with Avianca LifeMiles.
A Few Very Important Things To Keep In Mind!
First, just because there are “open seats” showing on the seat map, that doesn’t mean they are in fact open. There could be passengers who have booked, but have not yet been assigned seats. Likewise, just because a seat is not available, doesn’t mean it’s taken. All I’m trying to say here is, don’t live and die by the seat map. If the airline is still selling the ticket for cash, there is a seat available.
Second, this one is important, Avianca does not allow for free cancelations or changes to award tickets. I know, it’s a bit absurd, but it’s the way it is for now. Currently on U.S. to Europe itineraries, the change fees are $50 and the cancelation fees are $200 per ticket. Additionally, a change in cabin class does not constitute a change. Instead, you have to cancel and rebook a new award.
Further, it take some time for Avianca to process your cancelation and return the miles. In the meantime, Avianca will not hold an award. I say all this because if you think you’re going to book a business ticket and easily change when a First Class seat becomes available, you’re dreaming. Instead, I’d hold off booking until you absolutely have given up on your chances of a First Class seat. Even so, you can continue to search/wait and eat the fee if you really want to fly in First.
From my experience, miles were redeposited in about 2 hours from the time I canceled my original ticket. Yes, I know the above because I made that mistake! Still, the $200 cancelation fee was still cheaper than Aeroplan fuel surcharges!
How Do You Get Avianca LifeMiles?
I guess all of the above is meaningless without this last part. For starters, you have to register for an Avianca LifeMiles account. You’ll need to do this anyway to search for award availability. While you’re at it, I’d also recommend setting up an Aeroplan account.
Once you’ve setup an account you can quickly transfer miles to it from transfer partner programs. For now, these programs include American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou, Capital One, and Marriott. Some transfer partners are more favorable than others. For example, both Amex and Citi points transfer to Avianca 1:1. Marriott on the other hand transfers at a 3:1 ratio; which is bad.
With the above information you can basically deduce the following. If you rack up a ton of Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you’re better off transferring to United. If you use Amex of Citi cards, you can transfer easiy to Avianca to book Lufthansa First Class.
Transfers from American Express are instant. So, when you find space on Avianca’s website, you can have miles in your account in about 2 minutes. This is huge when you need to act fast to grab that last award seat, but don’t want to park your flexible miles somewhere else first. There are also occiaionsally transfer bonuses offered by transfer partners. So, in some cases you could save even more on Lufthansa First Class when using certain rewards points programs as transfer partners.
Finally, you can earn Avianca LifeMiles through a co-branded credit card or by flying with Avianca and Star Alliance partners. I suspect most people reading this won’t be doing either.
Final Thoughts
Personally, I found booking Lufthansa First Class with Avianca LifeMiles to be a total pain. On two separate occasions I booked tickets only to find out that the space didn’t actually exist. This first happened immediately after transferring my American Express points to Avianca (oh great!). The second time happened right after my LifeMiles were redeposited after paying a $200 cancelation fee (you’ve got to be kidding me!).
Ultimately however, I ended up finding the space I wanted. This allowed me to book two $12,000 First Class tickets for just 165,000 American Express Membership Rewards points (and a few hundred dollars). So, let’s just say that the tickets were worth $23,500 total (netting fees). That means my American Express Membership Rewards points were worth about $0.14 a piece. That’s far better than the $0.015 value I assign to all of my points currencies.
If you carry forward that $0.14/point value to certain purchases, you could make the case that 5X airfare is actually closer to a 70% rebate. So, on a $1,000 airfare purchase, you’d get 5,000 Membership Rewards points. Those points would then be worth $700! For that reason, I’ll always make the case that points and miles are very worthwhile. However, points and miles are only valuable when you figure out how to maximize then and use them correctly.
